Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Friday, July 25, 2008
Oil statistic in perspective
Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Ben Lieberman’s thoughts about opening our coasts to offshore oil drilling as presented in a recent
La Crosse Tribune, it is interesting to contemplate the statistic he uses to impress us with the estimated amount of oil in these areas.
Mr. Lieberman states: “The Interior Department estimates that there are 19 billion barrels of oil in these restrictive areas, an amount equivalent to 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia.”
Obviously this sounds pretty impressive, as we all know that Saudi Arabia has a large percentage of the world’s oil and, therefore, our imports from Saudi Arabia must be pretty substantial — right?
If we do a little math, we find that the U.S. imports about 633 million barrels of oil per year (19 billion barrels over 30 years) or 1.7 million barrels of oil per day (633 million barrels a year) from Saudi Arabia. Because the United States uses about 20.5 million barrels a day, oil from Saudi Arabia represents only a little over 8 percent of our daily use. Also, 19 billion barrels would last a little over 2.5 years at the current U.S. use rate, or just over half a year on a world scale. (World oil use is about 85 million barrels a day.)
Therefore, a much different perspective is provided when Mr. Lieberman’s statistic is presented in more realistic terms; and a better understanding of just how important and far 19 billion barrels of oil will actually stretch when compared to current use.
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