The International Energy Agency (IEA) just released it World Energy Outlook 2013 and moves up the date by which the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer. In last year’s Outlook, the agency predicted the United States to be the number one oil producer by 2017, but it now predicts we will achieve that ranking two years earlier, in 2015, and we will then be producing 11 million barrels per day. The shale oil renaissance enabled by hydraulic fracturing coupled with directional drilling technology is the reason that the United States can reclaim that position from the current oil production leaders–Russia and Saudi Arabia. The United States remains the world’s largest oil producer for much of the IEA forecast period to 2035. Improved energy efficiency and a boom in unconventional oil and gas production enable the United States to meet almost all of its energy needs from domestic resources by 2035. Also, IEA points out that in 2035, fossil fuels still remain the major fuels on which the world relies, supplying 76 percent of primary energy demand in 2035.
