Oil and natural gas touch our lives in countless ways every day. Together, they supply 65 percent of our nation’s energy. They fuel our cars, heat our homes and cook our food.
But did you know that oil and natural gas also help generate the electricity that powers our daily lives? Or that crude oil supplies the building blocks for everything from dent-resistant car fenders to soft drink bottles to camping equipment?
Explore this section to learn more about oil and natural gas, how they are produced and how they become the products you count on. You’ll also find useful tips on how to conserve energy and use oil and natural gas products in ways that protect you, your family and our environment.
The Truth About Oil and Gasoline: An API Primer
America is in a global struggle for energy security and many of us lack a full understanding of the oil and natural gas industry. API has assembled a primer to encourage a constructive public policy debate on meeting the growing energy needs of consumers and industry.
Sections include discussions of global energy demand, price increases, what consumers are paying at the pump, earnings, refinery expansions, the environment and energy security.
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Size: 1.31 MB | Date: November 21, 2008 | License: Free
To see an accompanying video that helps explain topics presented in the Primer, go to to the Energy Tomorrow website to view.
Policies for America’s Future: Restoring Our Economic Strength and Shaping Our Energy Future
The United States is at an historic turning point for the country and its energy policies. The political campaigns are over and the real work must now begin. In order to encourage a constructive public policy debate that leads to a new fact-based comprehensive energy policy, API has assembled this primer. Now more than ever – in this time of financial crisis -- our nation needs to move away from the energy politics that have failed so badly over the past decades and get to work putting our nation’s own resources to work for American consumers. Download/View
Size: 1.25 MB | Date: November 21, 2008 | License: Free
The Facts About Oil Industry Mergers, Market Power and Fuel Prices: An API Primer
The oil and natural gas industry recognizes the concerns across the country over the higher energy costs American consumers and businesses have been facing this year. It is also aware of the assertion that the consolidation that has occurred in the industry over the last decade has led to higher energy prices. This primer attempts to address those concerns and offers the proper context in which to view both energy prices and company mergers. It is important to understand how the energy world has changed. Forty years ago, the world oil reserves were largely the domain of the investor-owned, international oil companies (IOC), based principally in the United States. Most people today assume international oil companies are little changes from decades ago, still siting astride the bulk of these world oil reserves. That is no longer the case. Today, world oil reserves are 80 percent owned by the national oil companies of foreign governments, many formed during the past 30 years. Only six percent of worldwide oil reserves are now held by investor-owned oil companies.
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Size: 1.15 MB | Date: August 13, 2008 | License: Free
Facing the Hard Truths About Energy
The latest report by the National Petroleum Council The American people are very concerned about energy—its availability, reliability, cost, and environmental impact. Energy also has become a subject of urgent policy discussions. Developing a framework for considering America’s oil and natural gas position now and for the future requires a broad view and a long-term perspective; both are provided in this study by the National Petroleum Council.
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Size: 677 KB | Date: September 26, 2008 | License: Free
Investment and Other Uses of Cash Flow by the Oil Industry
Today's oil and natural gas industry earnings are invested in new technology, new production and environment and product quality improvements to meet tomorrow's energy needs. This new Ernst & Young study shows the five major oil companies had $712 billion of new investment between 1992 and 2007, compared to net income of $705 billion during the same period. The industry overall, which includes 41 of the largest U.S. oil and natural gas companies, had new investments of $1.17 trillion over the same period, compared to net income of $974 billion and cash flows of $1.74 trillion. High oil and gas prices in recent years increased oil and natural gas companies’ cash flows from operations and net income, which facilitated record levels of investment spending. Download the complete report below (Published July 2008) .
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Size: 202 KB | Date: July 15, 2008 | License: Free
The Economic Contributions to the U.S. National and State Economies by the Oil and Natural Gas Industry
This report quantifies the effects of the oil and natural gas industry’s employment and purchases of goods and services on the U.S. national and state economies in terms of jobs, value-added, and labor income.
Full Report
Size: 310 KB | Date: January 15, 2007 | License: Free
What Goes Down Must Come Up: A Review of the Factors Behind Increasing Gasoline Prices, 1999-2006
U.S. gasoline prices nearly tripled between January 1999 and July 2006. Consumers, policymakers, and the media have questioned why prices rose so quickly and why they remain so high. In this paper, Professor Carol Dahl, an independent expert in international energy markets reviews the available data and evaluates the various forces that have been suggested as possible causes for these price trends.
Executive Summary
Size: 1.2 MB | Date: April 2007 | License: Free
Full Report
Size: 1.5 MB | Date: Updated July 2007 | License: Free
Understanding Today's Crude Oil and Product Markets (Oil Primer)
American consumers, and policy makers, are anxious for answers to explain why fuel bills are getting more expensive. They wonder what has caused the price of crude to push past $70 per barrel and how that crude price affects the price of gasoline and other refined products. In a project commissioned by API, Lexecon. a unit of business consultancy FTI, has put together a primer called “Understanding Today’s Crude Oil and Products Markets.”
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Size: 1.7 MB | Date: May 2006 | License: Free
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Understanding Natural Gas Markets
Natural gas is an attractive fuel because it is clean-burning and efficient. The importance of natural gas as an energy source for the United States has grown since the mid-1990. For the last five to seven years, the price of natural gas has been trending upward in response to the interaction of supply and increased demand. In a project commissioned by API, Lexecon. a unit of business consultancy FTI, has put together a primer called "Understanding Natural Gas Markets" that explains this interaction of market forces.
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Size: 1.8 MB | Date: January 2007 | License: Free
Emerging Energy Technologies Research
The U.S. oil and natural gas industry reinvested $98 billion during the past five and a half years on emerging energy technologies in North America, according to a new report. The analysis, from the Institute for Energy Research and the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas, notes that investment represented 73% of the estimated $135 billion spent by all U.S. companies and the federal government from 2000 through 2005.
The Economics of Gasoline Retailing
In his new study. The Economics of Gasoline Retailing: Petroleum Distribution and Retailing Issues in the U. S., Andrew N. Kleit, Ph.D., professor of Energy and Environmental Economics at Penn State University, finds non-price vertical restraints and zone pricing marketing strategies are the result of competition among various forms of distribution in gasoline marketing. This competition promotes efficiency, which benefits consumers by bringing product to market for less.
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Size: 2.85 MB | Date: December 2003 | License: Free
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