The sudden increase in oil production in North America, driven by the boom in shale oil extraction, has caused a shock in supply across global markets that fundamentally changes the oil industry, stated the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Tuesday.
– North America has caused a supply shock that is felt worldwide – emphasized IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven during the presentation of the agency’s five-year forecasts for oil markets. The boom in oil and gas production from shale has become the gold rush of the 21st century, generating tens of billions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the U.S.
– A mature economy that was the cradle of the oil industry about 150 years ago faced an apparently irreversible decline in production only to suddenly find itself at the center of a new oil boom – announced the IEA. This boom has generated a completely new source of supply, “which will transform the market in the next five years, just as the rapid growth of Chinese demand has done in the past 15 years.”
Meanwhile, Canada has already been among the leading energy exporters, while the United States could transform from a leading importer to a net exporter of oil in the coming years thanks to the rapid growth of shale production.
The IEA had already attracted public attention last November with its forecast that the U.S. would become the leading oil producer by 2017 due to shale energy.
In the report published today, the agency estimates that based on shale production, supply from North America will grow by 3.9 million barrels per day from 2012 to 2018, meaning it will account for two-thirds of the total forecasted supply from countries outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), estimated at six million barrels per day.
