Surging U.S. Oil Production Pushes Reserves To Highest Levels In 30 Years

[Purveyor]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Surging oil production has put the United States on track toward greater energy independence, pushing US reserves to their highest levels in 30 years.

But analysts say bottlenecks in the distribution system are keeping oil from reaching markets.

US oil stocks reached 395.3 million barrels last week, a level not seen since US authorities began publishing weekly figures in 1982. The Energy Department’s monthly figures show it to be the highest since April 1981.

--CLIP
With the emergence of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to extract oil and gas from new sources, US oil production has increased from five million barrels a day to 6.5 million barrels in 2012, and the US Energy Information Administration anticipates production will hit 8.2 million barrels a day in 2014.



Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/04/surging-u-s-oil-production-pushes-reserves-to-highest-levels-in-30-years/

[snappyturtle]

1. Where's all this oil going to be refined? Or is the crude just

going to be sold to the highest bidder?

[heaven05]

2. yeah

bottleneck my butt. Keeping it off the market so prices can stay high=higher profits. I don't trust them.

[Andy823]

8. +1000

No matter what the price will stay high because of "supply and demand"! The oil companies cut the supply to the refineries, and demand demand goes UP, no matter what prices still go up! It's all about GREED!

We need alternative renewable fuels so we don't have to rely on the old "supply and demand" crap the oil companies feed us!

[daleo]

3. What if they run out of fracking chemicals?

I wonder how expensive those chemicals are, and how much is used per barrel of oil.

[Newest Reality]

4. It is interesting to note

that we can only use less than 20% of the current reserves before we irreparably tip the scales on the environment.

So, regardless of how many new sources for petroleum we discover and utilize, we cannot burn it all and use it as fuel without making ourselves and many species extinct. Period.

Besides, there are so many other uses, (thousands and the by-products are almost ubiquitous) we will have to reserve the remaining petroleum for that burning it endlessly won't make sense. From paint to makeup to pharmaceuticals, (and look around you because most of that stuff is either made from or with petroleum) modern life is oil.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. But the GOP said Obama has reduced oil production

They wouldn't lie, would they?

[pampango]

6. Surely you are not going to confront the GOP with 'facts'. That never goes well.

They have a certain policy that they are selling. "Fear", "hate", "emotion" all those you can bring to the table but the GOP does not want to hear about 'facts'.

[earthside]

7. Don't get excited.

Oil reserves are always inflated ... oil companies have to point to plenty of future supply to keep their stock prices healthy ... so they fudge on the high side.

The quality of reserves and how much it will cost to produce also makes a big difference. Heavy crude is expensive to refine and/or deep fracking is going to be costly to pump, the same with deep water drilling ... expensive. Plentiful reserves even if they do exist don't mean cheaper gasoline.

Conservation and switching to alternative 'green' fuels are still our best bet for an affordable energy future.

Of course, the Repuglican-Tea Party-plutocrats axis would like us to all get excited about these reserve numbers and burn through as much oil as possible because energy corporations and their elites want every last penny you can earn.

[DCBob]

9. Price of gas has dropped to $3.39/gal at my local station.

I believe that the lowest its been in years.

[Purveyor]

10. We are up to $3.84 here around mid-michigan. Refinery fire somewhere...is their 'latest' excuse.

[brett_jv]

11. At least 1/2 of that is still imported oil ...

6.5M barrels is still not even 1/2 of what we burn through each day, and still nowhere near our 1970 peak which if memory serves was around 10M bpd. If we really do hit 8.2 in 2014 (and there is very ample reason to doubt that this will ever actually occur), at that point I'd say we're making a dent in our foreign oil dependence.

The gasoline price, however is never going to plummet drastically again (or if it does it'll be short-lived) though because this oil is much more expensive to produce than the stuff we were burning in the early 90's, with significantly lower EROEI. They'll keep the excess off the market, or sell it to China or Japan or somewhere else that wants it.

If the crude oil price falls by much, the investment money for new rigs will dry up instantly because there'll be no profit in the drilling. Basically the dynamics of the industry will never let it happen. Nor should we WANT it to happen, for all sorts of reasons.

[Yo_Mama]

12. You are quite wrong

The picture has changed dramatically in just a few years. Here's the last weekly report.
http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/overview.pdf

So far this year, net imports of petroleum and petroleum product have averaged 6,696 versus total domestic supply of 18,426. So we are now importing about 36% of our usage.



If you go to this page, you can see how much our net imports have fallen:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=wttntus2&f=4

We are back to about 1993 levels, having dropped more than 5,000 barrels a day from the mid 2000's high.