United States to Become World's Largest Oil Producer

NCPA November 27, 2013

Soaring shale output in the United States is helping the world's largest oil consumer achieve its highest level of energy independence in two decades, cushioning it against disruptions in Africa and the Middle East. The boom threatens revenues for OPEC's 12 members, whose production is at its lowest in two years amid political unrest in Libya and theft in Nigeria, says Bloomberg.

• The United States will surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer by 2015, and be close to energy self-sufficiency in the next two decades, amid booming output from shale formations, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said recently.
• "As production goes up and imports go down, it does have positive macroeconomic effects for the U.S.," said Mike Wittner, head of oil research at Societe Generale SA in New York. "It's good for the balance of payments, good for the dollar, good for jobs, for other heavy industries. But it doesn't equate to being insulated from world oil markets."
• U.S. oil production will rise to 11.6 million barrels a day in 2020, from 9.2 million in 2012, as it taps rock and shale layers in North Dakota and Texas with the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, according to the IEA, a Paris-based adviser to 28 energy-consuming nations.

Source: Grant Smith, "U.S. to Be Top Oil Producer by 2015 on Shale, IEA Says," Bloomberg, November 12, 2013.