>> We consume in the range of 19 million barrels a day. We produce less than 12 million barrels per day. <<
Not really. Of what we “consume,” 6 million barrels are for export products (such as gasoline, chemical products, etc.) Our net imports of oil are less than 2 million barrels per day, lately.
But it’s worth noting that until we reach 19 million barrels, cheap oil will be beneficial for our economy. As opposed to OPEC nations, Russia, Mexico, etc., which root for expensive oil.
It looks like we both got some numbers wrong.
I think this is the data source you used:
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table1.pdf
My claim that we consume around 19 mbd of crude oil came from the EIA summary for 2017, which was 19-20 mbd.
I'm thinking now that EIA’s 2017 number was for crude oil PLUS natural gas liquids and all the other liquids.
Your statement that we imported 2.1 mbd of crude oil last week, and that the four week average is less than 2 mbd, is not what EIA’s data chart says.
The chart says that Net Imports of crude were 5.1 mbd last week, and the four week average was 5.3 mbd.
In other words, we would need to increase our domestic production of crude almost 50% to reach energy independence.