Selling The Oil Illusion, American Style
by Chris Martenson
ZeroHedge.com
11/14/2011
“The task of the real intellectual consists of analyzing illusions in order to discover their causes.” ~ Arthur Miller
US production of crude oil peaked in 1970 at 9.637 mbpd (million barrels per day) and has been in a downtrend for 40 years. Recently, however, there’s been a tremendous amount of excitement at the prospect of a “new era” in domestic oil production. The narratives currently being offered come in the following three forms: 1) the US has more oil than Saudi Arabia; 2) the US need only to remove regulatory barriers to significantly increase production; and 3) the US can once again become self-sufficient in oil production, dropping all imported oil to zero.
Let’s first take a look at over 70 years of US oil production.
Chart…HERE
