Hi All,
A few factoids contributing to the overall high cost of Gas, most of the stats are summarized information from the US Energy Information Administration and the industry broadsheet The Oil and Gas Journal
As of 2005 the USA had 21.9 Billion barrels of proved oil reserves, making it the 11th most oil rich country in the world.
However, American drilling, refining, and research and discovery at home all continue to decline, even as consumption increases. Despite the fact that the US has the capacity to hugely reduce its reliance on foriegn oil by utilizing domestic oil reserves, political pressure makes this less feasible with every passing year. Specifically, drilling in many of the most oil rich areas is severely restricted. In a sense, environmentalism has made us more prone to the charges of "selfishness" in that US unwillingness to drill at home means that they consume more of the total foreign oil production than is necessary and drive prices up worldwide.
Almost as critical as the production problem however, is the refinery crisis. As has been pointed out the USA has not built a new refinery in over 30 years and several have closed in the meantime. Our consumption is already far outstripping our refining capacity, and the chances of building a new refinery are actually probably worse than the chances of renewed drilling in Californian coastal waters.
The following US Gov. stats should show how serious the problem actually is, I've tried to order them to make the data more useful:
Oil Consumption (2003E): 20.0 million bbl/d; (January-October 2004E): 20.4 million bbl/d
Crude Oil Refining Capacity (1/1/05E) (Oil and Gas Journal): 16.8 million bbl/d (132 refineries)
Proven Oil Reserves (1/1/05E) (Oil and Gas Journal): 21.9 billion barrels
Oil Wells Drilled (2003): 6,284 (down from 8,060 during 2001); (January-September 2004): 4,391 (down from 4,871 during Jan.-Sep. 2003)
Oil Production (January-October 2004E): 7.7 million barrels per day (bbl/d), of which 5.4 million bbl/d is crude oil
Net Oil Imports (2003E): 11.2 million bbl/d (56% of total consumption); (January-October 2004E): 11.8 million bbl/d (58% of total consumption)
Gross Oil Imports (2003E): 12.2 million bbl/d (of which, 9.6 million bbl/d was crude oil and 2.6 million bbl/d were petroleum products)
Crude Oil Imports from the Persian Gulf (2003E): 2.4 million bbl/d; (January-October 2004E): 2.4 million bbl/d
Top Sources of U.S. Crude Oil Imports (January-October 2004E): Canada (1.61 million bbl/d); Mexico (1.59 million bbl/d); Saudi Arabia (1.48 million bbl/d); Venezuela (1.29 million bbl/d); Nigeria (1.09 million bbl/d)
Total Oil Stocks (12/10/04): 1.65 billion barrels (including about 673 million barrels in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve)
With the situation above, it would be odd if prices weren't going up. Supply is dropping, while demand is increasing, the most basic rule of economics dictates prices will increase until supply begins to match demand. US efforts to date have primarily been to decrease demand at home and increase supply abroad (which is very difficult to do), personally I believe its time domestic supply (which the US can control) was actually increased as well.
