Who Secures Energy Supplies To Meet Our Nation’s Needs?

The U.S. Petroleum Industry and especially the International Oil companies like Exxon Mobil are being taken to task by the U.S. Government, Congress in particular, for doing what the industry is suppose to do. American oil and gas companies take risks to find and produce energy for the nation and further refine it into products used by every American. The U.S. Government and the majority of Americans do not understand nor appreciate what the petroleum industry does year after year during both high oil prices and low oil prices in helping to assure the nation of adequate energy supplies. Other than during hurricanes or natural disasters, when we go to a gas station we can expect adequate supplies of gasoline will be available and of a quality that our vehicles will run efficiently. The government and environmental groups constantly feeds public hostility toward the industry, they impose strict environmental and regulatory roadblocks to the development of our resources making it difficult for the companies to do their job. The government also bans areas from drilling preventing the development of our own domestic oil and gas supplies while they criticize Saudi Arabia for not producing more oil. Congress is currently considering harsh new taxes on oil companies and increased restrictions on drilling. Recently, news sources reported that the government wants to ban or restrict drilling onshore in the state of Utah.

Aside from the criticism and challenges in the U.S., the oil companies are facing new and difficult challenges because reserves are becoming increasingly hard to find and expensive to produce. One of the challenges is competition from government-owned national oil companies (NOC’s) that control over 70% of the world’s oil reserves. The NOC’s are taking their recent wealth as a result of high oil prices and are investing in energy-related activities outside of their national borders. Such investments include drilling partnerships, pipelines and new refineries. The long-term implications of these investments could impact our energy security. If the U.S. government continues its negative campaign against American oil companies, in the future we will all be dependent on gasoline imports from foreign refineries.