American oil and natural gas reserves are at their highest levels since 1972, according to a new analysis released by the Institute for Energy Research on Thursday.
Most of the new reserves are due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
“The fact is, we’re not running out of energy, we’re running into it,” IER spokesman Chris Warren told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Our proved reserves of oil and natural gas are hitting record levels thanks to innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies, which have allowed companies to tap into our vast shale resources.”
The increase in reserve levels is illustrated in this Energy Information Administration graph:
“The shale boom has put to bed the idea of ‘peak oil,'” Warren added. “It is also proof that real energy solutions come from American ingenuity rather than subsidies and mandates.”
American reserves of crude oil and natural gas have risen for six consecutive years, although the U.S. produced more oil and natural gas than any other country in 2014, according to the EIA.
American oil production in 2014 was 80 percent higher than in 2008. And the United States produced an average of about 9.3 million barrels of crude oil per day in June. These huge increases in production and reserves are directly attributable to exploitation of tight oil formations and shale gas via fracking.
America controls the world’s largest untapped oil reserve, the Green River Formation in Colorado. This formation alone contains up to 3 trillion barrels of untapped oil shale, half of which may be recoverable. That’s five and a half times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. This single geologic formation could contain more oil than the rest of the world’s proven reserves combined.
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