text: with more oil only 1000 feet below the ground then all the oil in the middle east combined in our country? the largest untapped oil reserve in the world in the rocky mountains. saudi arabia's proven reserves of 261 billion barrels we have now proven to have 2 trillion barrels.   so hy not tap into this reserve and not have to be railroaded by the east  look up deepwater drilling why are we under another countrys control when we do not have to be we can once again not have to rely on others.  again why i think what you are referring to is oil shale, not the same as crude being pumped out of the ground by the familiar means, and i believe the us has the largest reserves and i just read that total world reserves is "conservatively estimated at 2.6 trillion barrels". there is some reserves that are too deep to be mined economically, but overall, it is rather expensive to tap this oil resource.(http://emd.aapg.org/technical_areas/oil_shale.cfm). somewhere along the line, you seem to have your information mixed up