Over the past three years, we have seen a dramatic rebound in America’s oil and natural gas production after a hiatus of almost 40 years. This has occurred despite falling output in Alaska, the moratorium on deep-water drilling imposed in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig blowout last year, and extremely low prices for natural gas.
New technologies for extracting oil and gas from deep under the ocean floor as well as shale formations have been largely responsible for the country’s fossil fuel renaissance.
All this is good news for America’s consumers. Though gasoline and diesel prices have jumped 30 percent over the past year, absent the 11 percent increase in oil production from U.S. fields consumers might be paying even more.
At the same time, falling imports chopped about $20 billion off America’s import bill last year. Abundant new supplies of natural gas at low cost have reduced the home heating and electric bills for millions of American households.
In a sluggish economy, energy producing states like Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana are benefiting from the job and income growth associated with the resurgent energy sector.
Each of these states currently posts unemployment rates below the U.S. average of 9.1 percent and each has posted job gains over the past year, led by the energy sector.
According to a recently-released study by Quest Offshore Resources, drilling and production in the Gulf of Mexico currently support about 182,000 jobs in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — a number that would have been even higher in the absence of the deep-water moratorium. Should drilling permits return to their pre-Macondo pace, by 2013 Gulf of Mexico operations could support 320,000 jobs in these states.
Non-energy states are also benefiting from the nation’s fossil fuel revival. According to the American Petroleum Institute, 9.2 million jobs across the county can be attributed directly and indirectly to spending by the oil and gas industry.
Developing oil and gas resources currently off-limits in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Alaska and the Rockies could create another 160,000 jobs by 2030 while expanding production in the Marcellus Shale and Canadian oil sands could add a further 620,000 over the next 20 years.
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