June 11, 2015

Gas price still moderate--because U.S. oil production is over 5 million barrels per day *higher* than 15 years ago!

As we head into the summer, gasoline is still hovering around $2.40 a gallon here in flyover country.  Great news for most of us.  (Except politicians, who motor on taxpayer-purchased gas, couldn't care less.)

Here's the twist: If not for an amazing, brilliant effort by a stunningly competent group of folks, your gas would cost way over $8 a gallon by now.

And who is that amazing, brilliant, competent team that's responsible for saving you five and a half bucks a gallon?  Why, it's...the emperor's hand-picked energy secretary and advisors!

Hahahahahahahahaha!  That's some funny bullshit.  The emperor and company couldn't find their ass with both hands.  Instead the amazing, brilliant, competent group is...those hard-working souls who explore and drill for oil in the U.S.  And not a single one employed by government.

Stay with me here, because the truth is so unbelievable that you'll think I'm making it up.

The graph below shows U.S. oil production for the last 16 years. 
Put a ruler over the thing from its left edge--1999--to May of 2007.  Where that ruler intersects the right edge of the graph is the amount of oil the U.S. would have been producing today, based on that 8-year trend.

You should get around 4 million barrels per day.  Production was falling for years because existing fields were being depleted.  But as you see on the graph (which is from the government's data-collecting people), last month the U.S. actually produced about 9.5 million barrels per day.

Unless you've been in the oil business you almost certainly have no idea of the effect the graph above has on the price of gas--and thus on your monthly expenses.  Example: If  a fire or terrorist act or hurricane anywhere in the world takes, say, half-a-million barrels per day (out of a total of about 94 million barrels per day) off the market, world prices go up a lot.  And of course the same trend also works the other way:  If a new field comes on line off Nigeria, adding half a million barrels per day to world production, the price of oil is pushed down.

Now, by some magic the United States alone is now producing roughly 5.5 million more barrels per day than would have been the case, based on the decline in conventional production.

This gain--by itself--has almost certainly cut the price you pay for gas by way over half.  Which means that if this extra production hadn't happened you'd probably be seeing prices in the $8 per gallon range.

What caused U.S. oil production to break the long depletion trend?  Where did all that extra oil come from?  From brilliant technology, pioneered by skilled companies both big and small, and improved by a long series of very costly trial-and-error wells.  Wells drilled and paid for by tax-paying companies, not government.  And some of those companies were very small family operations a decade ago, but have grown immensely--by being skilled, hard-working and diligent.

And this new technology is being applied all over the world to find new fields and get more oil out of "mature" fields, keeping the world's economy humming for extra decades.

Remember the emperor's infamous line, "You didn't build that"?  Well asshole, these folks *did* build that.  And because they did, Americans are saving billions.  And can fill up for $50 or so instead of twice that.

You used the power of government to ram through Obamacare, promising that the average family would save $2500 per year.  That didn't happen, despite all the billions of taxpayer bucks spent on your pile of crap.  But these private individuals made a huge breakthrough that really is saving American families lots of money.  So tell us again why free markets suck--why government is so f'n great, and allegedly the solution to all problems.

Horse shit.  Your emperor is a socialist moron.

Oh, and don't forget that Al Gore and the Democrats want to tax carbon when it's produced, and again when the products of its combustion (CO2) are emitted.  They want you drive electric cars with a range of maybe 120 miles.  Maybe that's fine for New York, but out here in flyover country it's not.
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