It's not really a stretch. Yes, America may be sitting on more oil, but until you've found it, it can't be considered a proven oil reserve. Countries with more proven oil reserves are going to naturally export more oil than those with fewer proven oil reserves, regardless of the reason why there are fewer proven oil reserves in certain countries. You may be sitting on it, but until you find it, you can't export it. On the other hand, if you're sitting on it and you've found it in abundance, then it's a pretty safe assumption that you will export oil in relative proportion to the amount that you have readily available in the proven oil reserves.
You continue to parrot the party line simplistically tying this concept of "proven oil reserves" to production without acknowledging the handicapping impact of government over-regulation. My point here is that the US oil industry would explore (in other words, find more proven oil reserves) and produce more if the government would merely ease regulations. You are discussing a logical relationship of cause and effect, but you stop short of identifying the true cause as in why these "proven oil reserves" in the US seem to be on the decline. Today, we have more regulation on our oil industry than ever before, and some regulations evolve with our political climate.
Remember from 1990 - 1999, gas consistently hovered at around 99 cents a gallon? In mid to late 1999, the price spiked to around $1.10 and then aggressively increased from there, maintaining an average of about $1.40 for 2000-2003'ish before spiking again due to the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, etc.
Actually, I remember paying 70 cents per gallon in the late 80s and early 90s.
This was largely due to the alleged "energy crisis" that was referred to in reports from the United States Department of Energy. Some of these reports went so far as to claim that oil reserves were decreasing in size, but most of the reports focused on a more quantifiable and believable stance: the rate at which we are finding new oil reserves is decreasing so that we will not be able to sustain our rate of oil consumption, which continued to grow each year. The last source I checked indicated that, based upon our current consumption rate and knowledge of existing oil reserves, we would be out of oil within 47 years if no additional reserves were to be found.
Yeah... There's always an apocalypse on the horizon, but as in most cases, this one is caused and hyped by an over-reaching government hellbent on obtaining more power and control. It's 47 years today, 25 years tomorrow and 53 years 2 weeks from now. In fact, I even recall hearing that we had less than 10 years before we ran out of oil. I've heard it all before. They just conveniently forget to tell us that we still have far more "unproved reserves" than all the "proven reserves" combined over the last 50+ years.
Now, as you said, there are a variety of oil reserves that have yet to be discovered, but with a futures market that revolves around speculation, these reports on the status of proven oil reserves do affect prices, even if those reports don't necessarily indicate that we're close to scraping the bottom of the barrel yet. Afterall, it's a futures market, so the speculators are more worried about instability in the long run than they are stability in the present.
Meanwhile, in the real world, futures traders are more skittish than stray dogs. The average futures trader doesn't have a clue about any proven oil reserves. Many are merely holding out for the next
crisis that drives oil prices up and put several grand in their pocket.
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