24 April 2015

American Strategy and Critical Changes in US “Energy Import Dependence"

APR 21, 2015 

Changes in energy technology and in the way oil and gas reserves are estimated, are raising serious questions about the future of US dependence on energy imports, and how this affects US strategy. While future projections remain highly uncertain, and various sources differ sharply in detail, official US projections show a steady decline in the level of future direct import dependence almost regardless of the type of dependence involved.

These projections are shown in detail, along with the necessary graphics and trend analyses in the full version of this report, which is available on the CSIS web site athttp://csis.org/publication/american-strategy-and-critical-changes-us-energy-import-dependence. The key conclusions and supporting data are summarize in this Executive Summary.

Since at least 2012, projections by the International 

Energy Agency (IEA), and the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the US Department of Energy have reported that a combination of new technologies and more diverse sources of fossil and other fuels could give the US enough annual output of all forms of energy to be a net exporter of energy.

Since those 2012 estimates, projections of US energy output relative to demand have increased, and the projections that the EIA issued in April 2015 now project that total US energy import dependence based on national energy consumption in BTUs will drop from 30% in 2005 and roughly 10% in 2013, to approximately 5%-8% in most scenarios during 2020-2030. The US would be a net exporter of energy at levels of 10-25% after 2025-2030 in the “high oil price” and “high oil and gas resource” scenarios.


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