Gas Prices

Not on your life would we see 200/barrel oil here in the states for at least 25 years, barring macro inflation. I used to be in the oil and gas industry, I've heard it all and seen more. These news outlets and analysts are not the people working the fields, checking production numbers, carting off train loads of light sweet crude. Fact is, it's yet another OPEC scare tactic, first they threaten us with rock bottom, door buster production. I remember just a few months ago they made claims they could pump seventeen dollar oil. NBC Nightly News did a story on it. It turned out to be a load of garbage.

Facts:

Saudis lie about their production numbers and their costs.

UAE claims they can outproduce us...right sure, and it's never happened.

Middle East oil requires extra refining processes because of it's high sulfer and heavy metals content. It's called SOUR for a reason.

Our oil, called light sweet crude pumped in the good ol USA is so good you could run it in an old diesel truck. (I mean it's not gonna be great but it'll run and drive)

We have developed processes to produce "alternative gasoline" products based on our natural gas production...we have so much methane we burn it off just to keep the pressure down...

Yes it is true some of our oil costs more than saudi oil, for instance, anwr and alaska reserves, our rigs that are beyond the shelf in the gulf, deepwater basically and some smaller operations in arkansas and oklahoma. BUT most of our oil is relatively cheap to produce and while it was expensive the oil companies invested in more than 80,000 wells all across america. We have more capped wells per capita than saudi arabia, so they can go ahead and stick a fork in it.

Oh and someone recently discovered oil in the upper peninsula of michigan...There are some indications (including finding hydrocarbons in water wells there may be oil in the copper falls region of wisconsin, previously undiscovered because nobody was drilling below granite bedrock. I can't imagine it would be a large amount or not costly to drill, however, goes to show you oil is not the rarity we were all lead to believe when we were kids.