But price competition is NOT why we aren’t building our domestic supply. Government interference, including outright bans on developing certain reserves, are what’s doing it. It doesn’t matter how expensive you make ME oil as long as our government stands against domestic oil we will not build the infrastructure.
We don’t need more supply (production is at 30 year highs). We are bordering the point now where it’s too much for refining capacity. Unless the laws are changed and we can begin exporting all the new supply will do is collapse prices to the point where it’s unprofitable to extract new supply from the ground. We are reaching that point around $80/bbl.