While I am not an expert in the oil industry, I found the above comments quite fascinating; they're spurring me to do a bit of my own research, in fact. I don't know who is right, but I just have to ask: "You obviously have absolutely no clue about what you are talking about." Would you say that to someone in person, too? The Internet is a good place to keep as much civility as possible, since there's so little of it to go around.
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U.S. oil output is benefiting from the addition of major deep-water fields, including BP's Thunder Horse, that are helping offset production declines onshore and in shallower Gulf waters. In many cases, these deep-water fields were discovered years ago but are only now coming on line, given the massive costs and technical challenges associated with them.
The combination of favorable factors should lift U.S. crude oil production to an average of 5.22 million barrels per day in 2009, up from 4.95 million barrels per day last year and the first annual increase since 1991, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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