Washington: Move over Saudi Arabia and Russia as the US has turned the world’s biggest oil producer this year extracting energy from shale rock that is spurring the US’s economic recovery according to the news agency Bloom-berg quoting a Bank of America Corp report.
The US’ daily output at over 11 million barrels of crude in the first quarter along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year and is only set to increase. This output is expected to increase to 13.1 million barrels a day in 2019.
The US annual investments in oil and gas including shale is at an astronomical $200 billion, reaching 20 per cent of the country’s total private fixed-structure spending for the first time, according to the bank’s head of commodities research, Francisco Blanch.
He told Bloomberg: “The shale boom is playing a key role in the US recovery. If the US didn’t have this energy supply, prices at the pump would be completely unaffordable.” Mr Blanch said further that it is very likely the US stays as No. 1 producer for the rest of the year as output is set to increase in the second half.
He felt that prices of crude have not come down despite the US’s feverish shale production activities at shale formations in Texas and North Dakota because production outside the US has been lower than anticipated. Besides, exports of crude are banned. The shale production is even bigger than Iraq.
