America Pursuit for Oil and America Oil Consumption

For years it was out of desperation that observers have advised and viewed of American energy policy and geopolitical risks regarding American obsession with oil. United States have become very sensitive to permanent events in the Gulf region. But the great surprise was the American public seems quite happy to give thousands of young soldiers in a desert war against other nation with huge cost inline.

Every nation could assume that the U.S. had learned the hard lesson from the Gulf War of 1991 and takes measures to increase the level of dependence on oil. But actually U.S. has already had enormous appetite for oil in the world. The U.S. oil consumption increased by staggering number of 20 percent in 2000. This is reaching a record high of 897.6 million tones per year (19, 7 million barrels a day). At only 25 percent, America is steadily share of world oil consumption has remained roughly constant since 1991.

In 1950, America had already takes and consumes more oil than it produces. In the next two decades after 50s, the gap between consumption and production expanded significantly. But this picture is somewhat misleading because for several decades, America was bringing out their own national oil domestic at lower capacity. This condition is partly due to domestic oil prices and partly on the idea that America should hold its oil stocks.

In 1970, domestic drilling production reached 11.3 million barrels a day, and until 1972 all the oil producers in the country produced a total capacity. As the result, economies of the entire oil industry, which has been hit by the oil crisis suffered, but improved after balance of oil reached. High oil prices deter expenditure and encourage production to countries with national oil production. In America in the early 1980s, American oil consumption actually goes down as oil for electricity generation and space heating has been replaced by alternative fuels, and because the countries economic growth slows to use less energy overall. Moreover, this situation is supported by the stagnation in domestic oil production and seemed to stabilize.

But in the second half of the 1980s, America had begun to get the oil deteriorate effects yet once again. This time oil production was now on steadily downward trend. For example, Melvin Conant, a leading expert in the United States on security of energy supply, wrote in 1981 mentioning that strengthening the development of domestic energy sources, improved energy technologies and conservation of U.S. oil imports in the 1980s has significantly reduced commitment. In 1998, for the first time in history, more than 50 percent of demand in the United States for oil from other producing countries, and this number is expected by the year 2001 was 54, 3 percent, a new growth record year 10.6 million b / D. Even more alarming news is the percentage of the total supply of oil to the United States (both nationals and foreigners) who come from the Persian Gulf was now 14.1 percent, the highest in the history of America oil consumption.

This singular event increase in oil imports was even more alarming because, as mentioned above, the United States has been very successful in replacing coal, gas and nuclear energy to gas in electricity generation. Therefore, the 977 to 2000 period, energy consumption of oil for electricity in the United States fell by 69 percent, while the combustion of coal 99.8 percent, natural gas and 97.2 per percent (from nuclear energy by 196 percent, but much less than carbon-based).