Gas

• The U.S. is the third largest oil-producing nation in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia and Russia.

• The United States has 198 billion barrels of technically recoverable conventional oil resources, enough to power America for the next 29 years at current rates of oil consumption.

• 39 percent of the oil we consumed in 2010 came from U.S. production.

• According estimates from the Energy Information Administration, 110,000 barrels per day of offshore oil production were lost in 2010 due to the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, and 250,000 barrels per day will be lost in 2011.

• In the U.S., oil production increased 7.4 percent in 2009 as a result of drilling investment made during high oil prices in 2008.

There are four main drivers behind the price of gasoline. First, there is the cost of the crude oil (a 68% factor). The second significant cost of gasoline is taxes-- federal, state, and local (a 15% factor) and third is distribution and marketing, which includes pipelines, transportation, delivery, and retail sales (a 10% factor). The smallest component during February 2011 was refining (a 7% factor). The distribution of the components changes based on many factors including the market price of crude, the environmental requirements that refineries must comply with at different times of the year, adverse weather affecting operations, and the tax structure of state and local governments.

Click here to see what we pay for in a regular gallon of gasoline.