By Institute for Energy Research ——Bio and Archives--December 8, 2011
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Big Oil is redrawing the energy map. For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers. Driving the change is the boom in unconventionals—the tough kinds of hydrocarbons like shale gas and oil sands that were once considered too difficult and expensive to extract and are now being exploited on an unprecedented scale from Australia to Canada. At this point, some readers may hang their heads in disappointment. “Aww, too bad,” they might think. “It looks like Australia and Canada are doing well for themselves, but the U.S. is still in a crisis.”
The U.S. is at the forefront of the unconventionals revolution. By 2020, shale sources will make up about a third of total U.S. oil and gas production, according to PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy. By that time, the U.S. will be the top global oil and gas producer, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, PFC predicts. [Bold added.]This prediction might shock some readers, who have bought into the myth that the U.S. is an energy-starved country. Yet right now the U.S. is the third-largest oil producer in the world, behind Russia and Saudi Arabia. The reason we still import so much oil is that the U.S. is (by far) the largest consumer of oil. This isn’t a reason to fret, incidentally; it reflects our high standard of living, and the fact that Americans are much more dispersed geographically than, say, the Europeans. IER’s new report on the fossil fuel inventory of North America shows that the new technological advances in unconventional extraction will soon make this continent the breadbasket to the world of energy supplies. Here are just some highlights of the new report:
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The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains that freely-functioning energy markets provide the most efficient and effective solutions to today’s global energy and environmental challenges and, as such, are critical to the well-being of individuals and society.