There is plenty of oil. There is some question about how oil is formed, now. It is no longer believed that there is a finite pool of oil and that once gone it is gone. Many believe that crude oil is a natural process where natural gas and other elements are forced together under the earth and form oil. The estimates of the world's oil reserves are now LARGER than they were 10 years ago.
Now it is time for me to be a naysayer. I have heard conflicting reports about oil reserves and I tend to believe those who say the reserve is decreasing.
The big problem I see with the oil futures you are trying to bolster is that none of the reserve is in America except ANWAR and some of the Gulf of Mexico. Problem with those reserves is if they are not tapped we cannot count on that supply before it hits the pipeline. I don't see that happening any time soon enough to alleviate the price gouging speculators. Getting greedy with possibly fabricated supply and production estimates, in collaboration with unstable foreign cartels, has nothing that provides me with a picture of security.
I am sure there are many reserves of oil that could be tapped eventually as technology allows. But political climate in those areas does not favor America. In the mean time, I think the safe bet would be on what else we can do in America to conserve, and develop alternatives.
100 years ago oil was of little value. Now the value of oil dictates the world's economy. The value of oil favors greed. The value of oil gives credibility and power to destructive dictators and regimes. Even 60 years ago Hitler and the Japanese Empire knew that control of oil was control of the world economy.
Even now some say we are fighting a war because of oil and I can't agree more. If there was no oil in the Middle East our interest in the region would be akin to Antartica's cold. The dictators of the region would have no collateral to buy weapons, and no reason to conquer their neighbors. And we would feel no strategic need to protect the people so we can get our oil.
Go ahead and count on the oil. I think I will put my stock in American ingenuity. I can follow a power line to the source and somewhat feel comfort knowing how it gets here. But the oil pipeline runs red with blood stains and crosses lands that are unforgiving and deadly.