Wouldn't More Drilling Just Mean More Exports?

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

I have a question: Petroleum products sales and distribution is a global business and tanker after tanker loaded with gasoline, diesel, and heating oil now leave our ports daily for foreign destinations instead of being made available for consumption here in America. What, if any, assurance do Americans have that more drilling and more refining capacity, here on our lands, would result in any significant amount of oil staying here?

If refineries were built and oil pumped, would not most of it still go on the world market to be added to world sales, especially if the market price remained high overseas?

Charles E. Ellis. Colonial Heights.