Gymjunky , America imports 7.5 mm barrels of oil per day . Some...

Gymjunky ,

America imports 7.5 mm barrels of oil per day .

Some of that is because the refineries cannot process enough of the super light oil coming from domestic tight oil reservoirs .

The situation with natural gas is that they are drilling out the best sweet spots of their best shale formations at bottom end of the market . They have been over producing like crazy , at a loss , to service interest on debt .

The next best acreage is not as good and will cost more to exploit .

You say "Trump’s plans for complete energy independence are achievable" .

Unless they discover a Ghawar type oil field in the U.S. , instead of becoming less dependent on foreign oil they will gradually become more dependent on it , not independent of it .

The only way I can see energy independence being possible would be for them to substitute energy efficiency+wind+solar+nuclear+coal for natural gas in electricity generation and substitute natural gas for oil in transportation .

Under Obama , energy was hardly discussed in the U.S. because gasoline was so cheap that it wasn't an issue for the voters .

At least Trump has put energy on the agenda but someone is going to have to tell him that it's not going to be possible to achieve oil independence by ramping up domestic production - all that will do is use it up even faster .