Surging US oil production brings down prices and raises climate fears

HOUSTON — American oil fields are gushing again, helping to drive down fuel prices but also threatening to undercut efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Only three years after U.S. oil production collapsed during the pandemic, energy companies are cranking out a record 13.2 million barrels a day, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia. The flow of oil has grown by roughly 800,000 barrels a day since early 2022 and analysts expect the industry to add another 500,000 barrels a day next year.

The main driver of the production surge is a delayed response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which sent the price of oil to well over $100 a barrel for the first time in nearly a decade. The wells that were drilled last year are now in full swing.

With the surge in output, gasoline prices have fallen by close to $2 a gallon since the summer of 2022 and are back to levels that prevailed in 2021. The increase in production has also provided the Biden administration with substantial leverage in its dealings with oil-exporting foes such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran while reducing its need to cajole more friendly countries such as Saudi Arabia to temper prices.

But the comeback in U.S. oil production poses big risks, too. More supply and lower prices could increase demand for fossil fuels when world leaders, who are meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are straining to reach agreements that would accelerate the fight against climate change. Scientists generally agree that the world is far from achieving the goals necessary to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming, which is caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal.

“We’re achieving energy security and reducing inflation by leveraging high-emitting, carbon-intensive oil production,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University. “We’re going to need to address that conflict.”

The United States now exports roughly 4 million barrels a day, more than any OPEC member except Saudi Arabia. On balance, the United States still imports more than it exports because domestic demand exceeds supply and many American refineries can more easily refine the heavier oil produced in Canada and Latin America than the lighter crude hat oozes out of the shale fields of New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.