Is it true that the oil reserves in the US are close to drying up?

Question

We all know the real reason that the US and the UK went to war with Iraq..oil! But I didnt know the US oil reserves were so depleated...any FAQ's...Thanks!

Answer 1

Check this out:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html

and this:

http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html

Answer 2

Right, there is a lot of oil still under american soil and there is a lot of money going into drilling for it, it has never previously been tapped because of the hard surface rocks that need to get drilled through to get at it and the fact that there is so much water under there with the oil, for every 100 gallons of pump only 1% is oil and it has to be separated which all makes it very costly and not efficient for the economy, however with rising oil prices now we've reached peak oil and Venezuela threatening to cut supply to Northern America, you can be sure they'll be accessing their supply that they sit on, which apparently outmatches any other reserve in the world.

Read up on Peak oil, it tells you when each area reached half way, you can see where we're at with our oil supply, where we're headed and what's likely to happen more and more as the resource becomes more and more scarce.

Answer 3

No, the US oil reserves are not close to drying up... plenty of fossil fuels left, and the more we conserve the longer they will last.

And by the way... Iraq wasn't about oil... or we would have stayed in Kuwait after Gulf War 1.

Answer 4

I don't think it's as easy to find anymore. Guess what...if they find it on your land and you don't own the mineral rights to your land...they can stick an oil pump in your backyard and you can't do anything about it. It happened to a family that we know. When you buy a house you only own like 6 inches of topsoil. We still have oil but I'm sure the oil in Iraq is easier to get and much more abundent. Although I don't think that's why we went to war.

Answer 5

I think you need to extrend the word "US" into "World".

And yes, the WORLDs oil reserves are drying up. They knew in the early 90s that the oil would be all but gone by 2050.

Why do you think WWIII is on its way and we are all fucked???

The western economy is based on fossil fuel, so now imagine there being NO oil. Thats right, the end of society. Back in the dark ages - think more like Mad Max...

Cant wait til the middle of the century then.

Answer 6

Many scientist predict that all of the oil in the world will be dried up in around 50 yrs based on current rates of consumption. This in one of the reasons why there has been such an outcry for gas companies and the government to investigate other forms of fuel.

Answer 7

Hey TOM C, I don't push my heterosexual ways in YOUR face, jerk!

The oils reserves are fine, and are meant to last for 2 years. Shael oil reserves are a different matter, there is said to be 110 years of shale oil in the USA.

Answer 8

No, they choose to use the oil from the middle east and conserve their own oil for when there is none left. This is the reason why successive US government's continue to meddle in this hemisphere with their lust for Black Gold using Israel and Britain as their agents.

Answer 9

Its called Peak Oil. Look it up, its real and it is really happening and that is one of the biggest reasons we are in the middle east. Look up Peak Oil

Answer 10

No the oil reserves are there for an emergency. Clinton almost depleted our naval oil reserves. If we had had to use the navy we would have screwed. We have since fixed that.

Answer 11

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an emergency petroleum store maintained by the United States Department of Energy. It has the capacity to hold up to 727 million barrels (116 million m³) of crude oil. As of August 04, 2006, the current inventory is 687.8 million barrels (273.6 million barrels of Sweet crude oil and 414.3 million barrels of Sour crude oil. The United States consumes about 20M barrels of oil a day; therefore, at maximum capacity, the SPR holds the equivalent of about 36 days of normal consumption.


OR WERE YOU ASKING ABOUT OIL IN THE GROUND?

United States proven oil reserves have declined by 46% since 1970.

United States crude oil production peaked in late 1970 at over 4 gigabarrels per year, but declined to 1.8 gigabarrels per year by early 2006. In fact, production in the fall of 2005 fell to only 1.5 gigabarrels per year as a result of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico — a level not seen since shortly after World War II. At the same time, US consumption of petroleum products increased to over 7.3 gigabarrels per year.

The USA has the smallest slice of this pie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_Oil_Reserves_2005.png

I don't believe that those estimates of US reserves include oil shale, because oil shale is too expensive to recover.

The United States has the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world and holds an estimated 800 gigabarrels of recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. Oil shale is developable given high enough oil prices, and the technology for converting oil shale to oil has been known since the middle ages.

However, the main constraint on oil shale development is probably going to be that Albertan oil sands are only about half as expensive to produce, and the US has full access to oil sands production under the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA.