API poll reveals US voters favour oil and natural gas development

71% of American voters favour increased access to US oil and natural gas resources, 90% believe more oil and natural gas development could lead to more US jobs, and 87% believe it could lower energy costs for consumers, according to a new poll released today. Commenting on the results, API President and CEO Jack Gerard said:

‘Strong majorities of voters support more domestic energy development, regardless of party affiliation. And they don’t like what they’re seeing in Washington where development has been slowed or stopped despite millions of Americans still out of work. Nearly two out of three voters believe the nation is moving in the wrong direction on energy.’

The telephone poll, conducted by Harris Interactive, among 1016 registered voters also found that 65% of voters feel that an increase in taxes on oil and natural gas companies could hurt consumers, 75% support building the Keystone XL pipeline, and 73% support a change in policy to allow more offshore drilling. 92% say energy security and producing more oil and natural gas domestically is an important issue this election. Strong majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents believe increased access to domestic oil and natural gas could lead to more American jobs.

 The US is the world's largest producer of natural gas and third largest producer of oil. It has very substantial reserves of both in part because of technological advances in offshore development and in the production of oil and natural gas from onshore shale formations.

Adapted from press release by Joe Hester.

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/drilling-and-production/15082012/api_poll_us_voters_favour_energy_development234/