Just when you thought that North American energy independence was a pipe dream, or that oil, money, and power were the natural inheritance of certain foreign oil-rich producers, US shale oil arrived four years ago to transform the global energy picture – and possibly the mathematics of geopolitical power.
What was once a David-and-Goliath fight is destined to become a clash of many Titans.
A classic confrontation between David (in this case, US shale) and Goliath (here, the OPEC “Petrostates”) has turned into a much more subtle calculus of dampened OPEC ambitions, downward pressure on global oil pricing, and amazement that US hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) could have changed the balance of accessible energy resources so rapidly.
