USA is poised to become world's top oil producer

Jim Marrant wrote that Barack Obama will never increase oil production in the United States! His opinion is not supported by facts.

The Times recently published a short report that the United States might soon pass Saudia Arabia as the top oil producer in the world. This is the fourth straight year of crude oil increases.

As the article correctly points out, high market prices and new drilling methods have spurred record production.

Marrant fails to recognize that oil is big business and not stupid. We don't produce oil to sell it cheaply here because this is a world market. Oil is at $86 a barrel today and is very profitable. Production would not be going up if oil was $25 a barrel.

As for George W. Bush's benevolence, that is correctly called the great recession that affected gas prices.

- Larry Snyder, Valparaiso