The Second Shale Revolution

“Saudi America” took the top spot as the No. 1 petroleum producer in the world and produced more petroleum in March than the combined output of all of the countries in Europe, Central America, and South America which has never happened in the history of EIA international petroleum data back to 1994. America’s shale energy revolution is taking us from “resource scarcity” to a new era of “resource abundance” as the US now consistently produces more petroleum than Saudi Arabia. --Mark J Perry, AEIdeas, 1 July 2013

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Exciting as Britain’s latest shale gas estimate is — 47 years’ supply or more — it pales beside what is happening in the United States. There shale gas is old hat; the shale oil revolution is proving a world changer. The numbers are so large they are almost ludicrous. Predictions that the oil supply in the US would peak, loud a few years ago, are a distant memory. --Matt Ridley, The Times, 4 July 2013 Booming oil production in North America driven by the shale energy revolution has created a global “supply shock” that is reshaping the industry, the International Energy Agency said recently.“North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven while presenting the agency’s five-year outlook for the oil market. The shale oil and gas boom has become the gold rush of the 21st century, with tens of billions of dollars in revenues and hundreds of thousands of new jobs in places as remote as North Dakota, in the Great Plains of the United States. AFP, 18 May 2013

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Production data for April show how fracking has shattered not only the shale rock in formations like Texas’ Eagle Ford and Permian Basin but also the myths of “peak oil” and petroleum as an energy source of the past. --Investor’s Business Daily, 3 July 2013 The price of oil could halve within the next decade because of a shale revolution, according to industry experts. John Llewellyn, the former head of international forecasting at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said that most oil price forecasts underestimated radically the impact of new extraction techniques for shale oil and gas on supply. Dr Llewellyn called the development of fracking — whereby gas and, in more recent advances, oil, can be extracted by shattering rocks deep underground — a “game-changing” technology. The development means that an oil price of close to $50 a barrel — about half the existing price — was much more likely than the cost rising to $200 per barrel. Oil is very likely to fall to well under $100 by 2020, the report says. --Juliet Samuel, The Times, 2 July 2013 Wind farms couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, Boris Johnson has said, warning the UK is facing a major energy crisis. The London Mayor cast doubt on the effectiveness of wind farms as he argued Britain should be doing more to exploit the potential of shale gas. He dismissed the Government's efforts to replace closing coal stations with wind power and nuclear, arguing shale gas offers the best opportunity for a secure supply. "Labour (sic) put in a load of wind farms that failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding," he said. "We now have the opportunity to get shale gas - let's look at it. It is part of the 2020 vision we have for this city - power generation is vital." --Rowena Mason, The Daily Telegraph, 2 July 2013 The rolling country south of London is called the stockbroker belt for the residents who pay 50 percent above the U.K. average to live in pristine villages. The advent of shale oil under their lawns may shatter the idyll. Two areas of Surrey and Sussex hold 700 million barrels of recoverable shale oil, or more than a year’s supply for Britain, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates. The advent of drilling near mansions in the Wessex and Weald basins may widen the nation’s shale-energy debate, which has focused on gas in northwest England, hundreds of miles from London. --Nidaa Bakhsh, Bloomberg, 30 June 2013

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