That's not enough to keep pace with the world's growing thirst for oil, which has increased 3.7 percent during the same time. And the imbalance between supply and demand keeps pushing prices higher. It's one of the main reasons gasoline now costs more than $4 per gallon.
This isn't the way economics are supposed to work. When a product is in short supply, the price rises, and the companies that make it usually produce more so they can cash in. Supply eventually outstrips demand and the price goes down.
Faced with rising global demand and record prices, the oil companies have a powerful incentive to find, pump and sell as much crude as they can. Instead, they're having a hard time keeping their output level, much less expanding it.
Big, untapped oil fields - often called "elephants" in the industry - are harder and harder to find.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, meanwhile, refuses to pump more oil, saying there's enough on the market. But that refusal may mask problems within the cartel, analysts say.
