While U.S. oil and natural gas production has generated record numbers in the past five years, with demand reaching more than 20 million barrels a day, the preceding Obama administration kept its doors wide open to imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and to a lesser extent from Middle East countries in general.
Some of this is due to the world-leading 140-plus sophisticated refineries the U.S. has built to handle the massive Brent crude available from most global oilfields, with the exception of the U.S. itself, along with Nigeria and Angola in Africa. These produce the light type of oil available from practically all America’s oil shales, primarily in Texas, and neighboring Southwestern oil shales, such as found in Louisiana, Oklahoma and some nearby states.