[Jim Sims]

If the price stays up there will be plenty of exploration and drilling in US territory even with all the regulations and areas off limits for environmental or political reasons. Plus renewed production in older fields using tertiary recovery methods such as steam injection, CO2 injection, caustic polymer injection, etc. It is critical the price remain high for oil (and hence also for gasoline and diesel fuels) for this to happen. However, this will not significantly lessen the US dependence on foreign oil; there are few places left in our territories to find giant oil fields and probably no places to find the super giants. These are the types of fields that can make a meaningful increase in reserves and production, I recall the last giant field discovered (1999?) and developed in the US was in the Gulf of Mexico and it is in water four miles deep. The only way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil is to use less oil period. Drilling in the US will not bring back the days of $2.50-$3.00/gallon gasoline; if gasoline/oil again becomes that cheap there will not be much incentive to drill and produce the hard to find and extract oil that remains in the US. I suggest we will have to get familiar with $4 to $6 per gallon gasoline plus increases due to inflation/declining value of the dollar. The US car/suburban culture may be on the cusp of significant change. We live interesting times.