This dependency on foreign oil supplies is set to continue, if the latest forecasts from the statistical arm of the US Energy Department are to come to fruition. The Energy Information Administration has projected American domestic oil output will decline in 2002 and 2003 to the lowest level in more than half a century.

US oil production averaged 5.85 million barrels of oil per day (bopd) in 2001, up 30,000 bopd, from the previous year before, its first yearly increase since 1991 according to the EIA.

In its monthly short-term energy forecast, the EIA said American domestic oil output is expected to decrease 71,000 bopd, or 1.2 percent, this year to 5.78 million bopd, the lowest level since 1950 according to the EIA.

For 2003, US oil production is forecast to drop another 2.3 percent to 5.64 million bopd. Lower 48 State oil production is expected to decrease by 49,000 bopd to 4.83 million bopd this year followed by a 158,000 bopd decline in 2003.

Alaskan oil output, which accounts for one out of every five US barrels produced, is forecast to decrease by 30,000 bopd this year to 940,000 bopd, but then rise by 30,000 bopd next year. The EIA said the increase in 2003 is due to new satellite fields being brought into production in Alaska's North Slope.