Dan Markham

In fact, no unbiased expert claims that exploiting the fields in the Alaskan wilderness would cause more than a bump in world supply or prices in the U.S.

Oil executives know that they haven’t explored 80 percent of their existing leases in the continental U.S., according to Barlett.

As followers of the “the peak-oil theory”, big oil believes that, by 2010, their industry will have hit a maximum level of output. After that, weather because of competing energy sources, depleted sources of oil or the increasing amount of money it takes to produce it, oil output will begin to permanently decline.

In “Crude Reporting: Ask the Tough Questions About Oil” Howell Raines of Portfolio.com looks at the myths of supply and demand oil companies have perpetuated in order to gain monumental profits before their tap begins to run dry.