The US shale revolution

The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its 2012 forecast, helped bring shale oil production to global attention by stating that the US would be a net oil exporter by 2030.

If the US, China, Europe and other major energy consumers can tap their own rocks for gas and oil to generate electricity, then the world’s power arrangements are about to be rearranged.

Shale resource is widely dispersed across the planet, cheap to develop and offers many of the same energy benefits as coal. The conventional energy structure and the geopolitics that underpins it, and all it stood for, would be dismantled were shale deposits to be developed on a major global scale.