US Chamber report puts US in fourth place for energy security
June 8, 2016
2016 International Index of Energy Security Risk.
Institute for 21st Century Energy www.energyxxi.org
In this, the fourth edition of the International Index of Energy Security Risk, once again the big story is how the shale revolution in the United States has changed the U.S. and the global energy security landscape for the better.
It was not all that long ago, in March 2012, that President Obama declared in his weekly address to the nation, “But you and I both know that with only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices – not when we consume 20 percent of the world’s oil.”
Apparently, U.S. industry did not get the word. From the end of 2011, a few months before the president made that claim, to 2015, U.S. crude oil production jumped by 3.8 million barrels per day, an astonishing two-thirds higher, with production from Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Colorado leading the way.
This rising output from North America (Canada, too, increased it oil output substantially (about 800,000 barrel per day) over this time period) came during a time of rising tensions in the Middle East, supply disruptions, and increasing demand from large emerging economies like China that normally would squeeze spare global oil production capacity and send prices sky-high. It did not happen.
In fact, we have seen just the opposite—prices plunging buy more that 50% in the span of a few months. How did this happen? North American producers proved so good at finding and producing
oil, and thus reducing the need for imports, that Saudi Arabia, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ swing producer, felt compelled to abandon its defense of a $100+ price for a barrel of oil and go for market share instead, adding even more oil to world markets.
See the full repoert at 2016 International Index of Energy Security Risk.
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