[NorseViking]

I am familiar with all the numbers you brought too. Including US oil production and consumption over time.

[Zhang Fei]

[I am familiar with all the numbers you brought too. Including US oil production and consumption over time.]

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But you claimed the daily numbers I cited were too high. Then I provided the Energy Department numbers which were even higher than ones I remember reading off a chart a while back. Not 10m barrels a day in 1991. 11.5m barrels. Even today, it’s about 8m barrels, if we take the average for the past 12 months.

[Zhang Fei]

The real bottom line is that gasoline and diesel used as transportation fuels are behind over 50% of the daily consumption of oil stateside and any big increase in prices is a major hit to family budgets across the country. That’s why Trump keeps jawboning the Gulf oil producers. He’s reminding them that they aren’t provinces of another country only because Uncle Sam is on the job. Imagine trying to jawbone a nuclear-armed Saddam with all the oilfields in his possession.