WATCH: Wyoming Oil Production Decline Over 40 Years

In the video below you'll see a graph of oil production state by state since 1981.

Wyoming starts in a high position then drops off a bit. Wyoming is nowhere near the bottom of the list, but what we do produce has slowed quite a bit over the years.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Wyoming is running out of oil. Economic activity and economy play a large role in what is drilled for, where, and why.

Remember that Wyoming had the first national oil boom.

In 1866, John C. Fiere, an employee of Fort Bridger Sutler William A. Carter, reported to his boss that he had found oil nearby. He had experience in the Pennsylvania oil fields and offered to develop the oil spring commercially. In the following years, the spring produced 150 barrels of oil. The entire amount was sold to the Union Pacific Railroad. (WyoHistory.org).

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Cy Iba, a former gold prospector, started drilling for oil around Casper. Several others attracted investment to possible oil strikes in the Big Horn Basin at Bonanza, northeast of present Worland and in southwestern Wyoming around Hilliard and Mountain View. Iba’s first strike, “Discovery Well” north of Casper, began transforming that newly established, wool-shipping railhead into the “oil capital of the  Rockies.”   (WyoHistory.org).

In this first video, you can see how much is produced by what states over the decades.

In this second video, you can see how much oil has been produced by countries over the years. Once again this amount of production does not always have to do with how much oil is underground. Economic issues, as well as political, have a lot to do with how much work is done.

This video delightfully plays music from the nation on the top of the list, and that nation changes often.

Just a couple of years ago America was an exporter of oil. Now we are importing again. We have more than enough under our own feet to supply the world for hundreds of years, yet we import it. That is purely a political problem.

Most of the oil America imports does not come from the Middle East, but from Canada and Mexico.

Those of you old enough to remember the '70s might remember being told that we would run out of oil by 2015. Actually, we now know that the tar sands oil in Canada has enough oil to supply the entire world for 100 years. There is far more than that available worldwide. We won't be running out of oil for a very long time.

The video below shows The Myth Of Peak Oil.