Energy & Security

Oil & American Power

1973— Present

From a gas line to the world's biggest producer — and a strait that still sets the price.

Oil has shaped American power for a century, but the modern story pivots on 1973, when an OPEC embargo brought gas lines, price shocks, and a foreign policy reoriented around securing supply. Decades later the shale revolution flipped the U.S. from dependent importer to net exporter, changing its strategic hand. This traces production, imports, and prices over the long run, how oil drove interventions and alliances, the shale turnaround, and what the energy transition means for that power.

Crude production, 2025

13.6M

barrels/day — an all-time record. The 1970 peak was 9.6M (EIA)

Importer → exporter

2020

first year since at least 1949 that exports beat imports (EIA)

Peak import dependence

60%

of petroleum consumed, 2005. Today the U.S. is a net exporter (EIA)

Gas in 1973 vs now

$2.92

a 1973 gallon in July 2026 dollars — below June 2026's $4.05 (EIA)

Strategic Reserve

316.5M

barrels, July 10 2026 — the lowest since April 1983 (EIA/DOE)

Oil & American power · 1901 — present

Hover any milestone for context.

Supply / price shockU.S. policyForce or covert actionMarket shift

Why oil became a security question

Oil is not strategically special because it is valuable. It is strategically special because it is concentrated, fungible, and indispensable at the same time. The places holding cheap, easily produced crude are few and mostly do not overlap with the places consuming it. Any barrel substitutes for any other, so a shortage anywhere raises the price everywhere. And until very recently no economy could function for long without it.

Those three properties, together, mean whoever can withhold supply can impose costs on everyone else without firing a shot. That is a description of leverage, and it is why oil policy has been written by defence departments as often as energy ministries.

The American arc, in three acts

Surplus (1901 — 1970). The U.S. was the world's swing producer. The Texas Railroad Commission set allowables month by month, and spare American capacity broke the 1956 Suez embargo outright. Oil power was exercised through companies — Standard Oil's heirs — and it was mostly invisible.
Dependence (1970 — 2008). Production peaked in 1970 and fell for 38 years. The cushion disappeared exactly as OPEC learned to use it, and by 2005 the country imported 60% of the petroleum it burned. This is the era that built the reserve, the Carter Doctrine, and CENTCOM.
Surplus again (2008 — ). Shale doubled output in a decade. The U.S. passed Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2018 and has exported more petroleum than it imports every year since 2020 — while remaining exposed to a price set in a strait on the other side of the world.

The thing the arc does not change

American petroleum consumption in 2025 was 20.6 million barrels a day — 19% higher than in 1973, and within 1% of the all-time peak set in 2005. The production story is real and the consumption story barely moved. Every strategic exposure on this page is downstream of that second number, which is why the shale revolution changed America's balance sheet far more than its vulnerability.

U.S. crude production · million barrels/day1900 — 2025

EIA series MCRFPUS2, which begins in 1900 — the earliest annual crude production EIA publishes. The 1970 peak of 9.64M b/d stood for 48 years; output bottomed at 5.00M in 2008 and set a record 13.59M in 2025.