How Long Will U.S. Oil Supplies Last? The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimates remaining recoverable U.S. oil is about 200,000,000,000 barrels(2) . According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), as of Oct 2000 the U.S. oil demand is 420,000 barrels/day(4) . Using these figures, I calculate the following first figures: 420,000 barrels/day times 365 days/year = 153,300,000 barrels/year 200,000,000,000 barrels divided by 153,300,000 barrels/year = 1,300 years. When I queried the EIA’s Short-term Energy Outlook Report for Oct 2000(3) , it says U.S. oil demands are the following second figures: 19,800,000 barrels/day times 365 days/year = 7,227,000,000 barrels/year 200,000,000,000 barrels divided by 7,227,000,000 barrels/year = 27.67 years. The USGS undiscovered oil supplies reported that there are 6,802,000,000 barrels of oil in the US(6) . Here are the third figures: 200,000,000,000 recoverable oil + 6,802,000,000 undiscovered oil = 206,802,000,000 potential barrels 206,802,000,000 divided by 7,227,000,000 barrels/year = 28.62 years. I’m not sure why there was such a big discrepancy between the first and second figures. Some of the many reasons could be that the oil companies reporting to the API are not telling the truth. Some of the oil might be “sour” and some “sweet,” but there is no distinction. Maybe some of the oil is located in deep waters or in environmentally protected areas. Since there are few U.S. graphs accessible to the general public that provide detailed information about oil resources and reserves (i.e., the information could obscure foreign trends) the numbers might be obscured too. The API and EIA do not provide references to their estimated figures which could imply they got the figures from the media or from other non-reputable sources. Or I might be misunderstanding the data. In any case, the second and third figures appear more realistic. Resources: 1. American Petroleum Institute: http://www.api.org/faqs/ 2. American Petroleum Institute: http://www.api.org/edu/factsoil.htm 3. Dept of Strategic Petroleum Reserve Quick Facts: http://www.fe.doe.gov/spr/spr_facts.html 4. Energy Information Administration (EIA), http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/usoil.htm 5. Energy Information Administration: Short-term Energy Outlook Report (Table 5, page 45): http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/ 6. USGS World Assessment Summary Report: http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/energy/WorldEnergy/DDS-60/sum1.html#TOP Home