The U.S. uses about 20 mbpd of petroleum and other liquid fuels, and produces about 7 of that (only 5 of which is actual crude oil). The other two-thirds is imported. There is no possible way that we could produce another 13 million barrels per day domestically, no matter where or how quickly we drilled.

The potential flow rates of the remaining U.S. deposits are formally unknown (we’ll get to that in a moment), but their contribution cannot fundamentally change the basic trend line of our petroleum production. Here is a chart of historical U.S. oil production:

The 38-year decline in U.S. oil production was not the result of politics. It is simply the nature of petroleum extraction.

In spite of major technological advances since the U.S. peaked in 1970 (3-D seismic, horizontal drilling, CO2 flooding, computer processing power, etc), our oil production is still declining. Indeed, despite the discovery of the largest oil field ever found in the U.S. (Prudhoe Bay), we were unable to get back to the production level at the peak in 1970.