Skip to footer

Oil production in US hits highest level in 15 years

Reports from the Energy Department released this week show that overall crude output in the US rose 3.7 percent to 6.5 million barrels per day by the week of September 21, according to Consumer Energy Report.

|
Robert Harbison/The Christian Science Monitor/File
Pictured are 55-gallon oil drums from the Bandera Drilling Company's spare parts yard. The increased oil production in the US is a direct result of the new technologies being implemented by oil companies in an effort to extract crude in locations other than wells, according to Consumer Energy Report.
  • By CER News Desk Guest blogger

Oil production in the United States rose last week to levels not seen since January 1997, helping the country to reduce dependence on foreign sources of crude as it continues to implement the drilling and fracking technologies needed to increase daily oil output. (See also: Are President Obama’s Policies Causing U.S. Oil Production to Rise?)

Reports from the Energy Department released this week show that overall crude output in the U.S. rose 3.7 percent to 6.5 million barrels per day by the week of September 21, a trend that has continued since the country met 83 percent of its annual energy needs from the beginning of the year through June. Should domestic oil production continue at its current rate, the United States will enjoy 2012 as its most self-sufficient year since 1991. 

The increased production is a direct result of the new technologies being implemented by oil companies in an effort to extract crude in locations other than wells, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking); the same technology has taken American natural gas stock levels to new heights. (See also: How Much Oil Does the World Produce?)

“This has been driven by shale, and the two states leading the way are North Dakota and Texas,” said Andy Lipow, president of Texas energy consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates LLC. “It appears that over the next five years, U.S. oil production could climb to well over 8 million barrels a day.”

The rise in crude production in the U.S. has analysts predicting that oil prices will decline over the next six to nine months; already a growing natural gas stockpile pushed futures down to $1.907 per million BTU earlier in the year, its lowest point in the past 12 years. Increasing fuel production has many setting their sights on what is being dubbed the “reindustrialization” of the United States, an economic state that could see more than 3.5 million jobs created in the country by 2020 if domestic energy production continues at a high rate. (See also:The Effect of New Production Methods on U.S Oil Output)

Source: U.S. Oil Production Surges to Highest Level in 15 Years

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Oil production in US hits highest level in 15 years
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/0928/Oil-production-in-US-hits-highest-level-in-15-years
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe