You can bet if there were more oil ,the companies would be exporting it to other countries,for a higher price,just like is done with coal and timber instead of keeping it in the US.
In the later seventies due to the so called energy crunch, oil shale business boomed in western Colorado.Then the slump hit and the oil shale business folded up as there wasn't enough moeny in it.Same thing would happen today.
There have been no new refineries built in the US for 50yrs, I think the figure is. The oil companies aren't going to build more when the ones they have are runing at 100% capacity, just so the US citizen can get cheaper gas.Nor are they going to drila bunch more wells so the price would go down.
