America's oil surge.

• Position: GRAPH - Brief article

In recent months, Americans have enjoyed remarkably low prices at the gas pump (see article, p. 8). One key reason is a supply surplus driven largely by a surge in U.S. oil production. The majority of that oil is crude oil, the unprocessed oil extracted from the ground. As the graph at right shows, U.S. production of crude oil has been soaring in recent years after a two-decade-long decline. The increase can be attributed to new--and sometimes controversial--drilling technologies like hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in which oil is forcibly removed from shale rock formations.

ANALYZE THE GRAPH

1. About how many barrels of crude oil did the U.S. produce in 1914?

   a 265,000

   b 2.65 million

   c 26 million

   d 265 million

2. The U.S. produced about 2.8 billion barrels of crude oil in --.

   a 1954

   b 1964

   c 1974

   d 1984

3. Prior to 2014, the last time U.S. annual crude oil production was above 3 billion barrels was during the --.

   a 1960s

   b 1970s

   c 1980s

   d 1990s

4. About -- million more barrels of crude oil were produced in the U.S. in 1994 than in 2004.

   a 50

   b 200

   c 400

   d 900

5. About 40 percent of America's crude oil output in 2014, or about -- million barrels, came from hydraulically fractured wells.

   a 875

   b 910

   c 1,260

   d 2,100

   DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How does this graph help explain the low oil and gasoline prices the nation has seen recently?

2. The "total oil" produced in the U.S. in 2014 (the crude oil shown on the graph plus other kinds of oil) was about 5 billion barrels. Using that measure, the U.S. is the world's...