U.S. gains global competition as shale energy revolution heats up

[Geee]

Washington Times:

The United States has been the dominant player in the shale revolution until now, but new estimates of the world’s potential shale resourcesshow that Russia, China and developing countries such as Argentina and Algeria could be the biggest winners in the future.

Russia — the world’s second-largest producer of oil from conventional reservoirs — has the most shale oil, with about 75 billion barrels hidden deep within the underground bedrock in Siberia, according to estimates published this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The U.S. is not far behind with about 58 billion barrels buried underground in formations stretching from New York to Alaska.

The U.S. remains far ahead of Russia or any other country in exploiting its shale oil resources, however, as U.S. companies pioneered the advanced technologies needed to extract the oil from solid rock. Russia has not even begun to exploit its shale oil — or even determine whether doing so is economically possible — while the U.S. is on schedule to produce more than 3 million barrels of oil a day in the next few years, creating an unprecedented glut of oil in the nation’s heartland.