FT: Beware the hype over the shale boom
The shale boom is set to go global. That is what the International Energy Agency has said, but is this promise of a burst of international, unconventional oil production in the next five years overhyped?
Techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have unlocked previously inaccessible US reserves and transformed the country’s energy sector. Indeed, it is on track to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020.
Now the oil watchdog backed by wealthy nations is looking to countries from Russia and Argentina, to Mexico and Canada. These nations are ploughing ahead with policy initiatives to initiate recovery from their shale oilfields and replicate the US success story. The US will barely make up 15 per cent of the world’s tight oil resources, according to the IEA.