Obama Lies. The U.S. has 60 Times more Oil than Obama Claims

OBAMA’S SELECTIVE DATA When Obama says the U.S. has only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, he is talking about the tip of the oil pyramid — that is, the “proved” oil reserves which refer to oil currently being drilled in existing fields. Obama frequently pushes the myth that oil in the U.S. is scarce, but in reality the U.S. has 60 times more oil than Obama claims. Investor’s Business Daily explains, “The U.S. has 1.4 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the Institute for Energy Research, enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for about the next 200 years, without any imports.”

Investor’s Business Daily reported:

“With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” [Obama] said. “Not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.” The claim makes it appear as though the U.S. is an oil-barren nation, perpetually dependent on foreign oil and high prices unless we can cut our own use and develop alternative energy sources like algae. U.S. Awash In Oil But the figure Obama uses — proved oil reserves — vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities — enough to meet all the country’s oil needs for hundreds of years. The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world’s proved reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains, proved reserves “are a small subset of recoverable resources,” because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields. When you look at the whole picture, it turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S., according to various government reports. Among them: At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered, according to the government’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA. Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska’s North Slope, says the U.S. Geological Survey. Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS. As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands, according to the Bureau of Land Management. Then, there’s the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming, which according to the USGS contains a stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale — a type of oil released from sedimentary rock after it’s heated. A separate Rand Corp. study found that about 800 billion barrels of oil shale in Wyoming and neighboring states is “technically recoverable,” which means it could be extracted using existing technology. That’s more than triple the known reserves in Saudi Arabia. All told, the U.S. has access to 400 billion barrels of crude that could be recovered using existing drilling technologies, according to a 2006 Energy Department report. When you include oil shale, the U.S. has 1.4 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the Institute for Energy Research, enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for about the next 200 years, without any imports. Read full report here.

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