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U.S. Oil and Natural Gas Reserves Growing Rapidly
Howard Richman, 8/14/2013

On August 1, the Department of Energy released its annual report on U.S. oil and natural gas reserves. This year's report shows the change in reserves during the 2011 calendar year.

As shown in the graph below, during 2011, U.S. oil and gas reserves continued to rise along about the same trajectory that they rose during 2009 and 2010. The following graph shows reserves each year since the beginning of 2000:

At the beginning of 2012, U.S. oil reserves were 29 billion barrels while U.S. natural gas reserves were 348.8 trillion cubic feet, the equivalent of 66 billion barrels of oil.

U.S. oil reserves have climbed from 22.4 billion to 29.0 billion barrels over the most recent decade - a gain of 29%, while U.S. natural gas reserves grew from 183.4 to 348.8 trillion cubic feet over the most recent decade - a gain of 90%.

Growing U.S. crude oil production has been reducing U.S. oil imports. Growing U.S. natural gas production has been keeping natural gas prices low, leading to a growing use of natural gas in industry, in power plants, and as vehicle fuel. It has also been leading to increasing U.S. exports of natural gas.