U.S has twice as much oil as the world known oil reserves conbined!!?

I came across this data: The U.S. has very large resources of oil shale, amounting to 2.1 trillion barrels of in-place oil equivalent in the western and eastern parts of the country. By contrast, Saudi Arabian oil reserves are estimated to total about 262 billion barrels 鈥?one-fourth of total world conventional oil reserves of about 1.1 trillion barrels. Thus, U.S. oil shale reserves are twice as large as known world oil resources.





So, basically, it says that the American has the largest oil reserve in the world!! is that the case?? then why not American consume its own oil, it would rather purchase the high-price mid-east oil???U.S has twice as much oil as the world known oil reserves conbined!!?
I'm sure it costs way more to process the oil shale than it is to pump straigh crude, so right now, it is just not cost effective to get oil out of oil shale. Another issue may be that the oil shale would probably have to be strip mined, and so many deposits may be in areas that are protected and you wouldn't want to strip mine there, like say in a national park or wilderness area, and other beautiful areas. I researched US imports of middle eastern oil for another question someone asked, and found that most oil we use is from the US or Canada. Almost all the middle eastern oil we buy is from Saudi Arabia, and that is only 13% of our oil imports.





There is a LOT of oil left in the world - but much of it will be very, very expensive to get. And it wouldn't matter if we got ALL our oil from the US - oil is a world commodity, and the price is the same unless governments subsidize purchase, which many oil producing countries choose to do (but I doubt the US would ever do that).U.S has twice as much oil as the world known oil reserves conbined!!?
Oil is irrelevant. We are only 10 to 20 years away from the ';hydrogen'; economy anyways. This quibbling over oil amounts to nothing more than the worlds richest energy people fighting over who is going to extract the last profitable nickel out of the ground.





By the time that oil shale is tapped, we won't need the oil any more. Or the demand for it will be so low, that it wouldn't justify the added expense involved in extracting it from the shale, which is far more expensive than conventional drilling. Already oil is below 40 dollars a barrel. If companies cannot make a profit from the substance they WILL NOT drill for it at all.
Extracting oil shale is an expensive and environmentally-devastating proposition. Even domestic producers of oil are reluctant to increase the supply too much as that will depress the price of oil. It's not just ';tree huggers'; who are reluctant to increase oil shale production--there are many many factors involved and not just in the immediate area of the excavation.
Well why consume our own when we could use someone else's? Later when they run out and the whole runs out us will have monopoly. Also we as americans very concerned about our environment. Oil does increase the risk of environmental damages.