Politicians of both stripes claim to be working to lower oil and gas prices. But can they really solve this problem? This problem is difficult because the United States is tied to the world oil prices. While the United States is the world’s largest producer of oil at 18.8 million barrels per day, it is also true that we are the largest consumer of oil at 20.5 million barrels per day. That means we must be in world markets to buy oil to meet our domestic demand.
Being able to control oil prices would only work if we produced enough oil to meet domestic needs and had enough extra capacity to bring the oil to market quickly, similar to what the Saudis can do. Only then could we control the price or oil in our country. The real answer to this dilemma is conserve more and to have affordable and reliable alternatives to oil.
Craig Fournier
Webster