(OILPRICE) — What OPEC countries fear most is a follow-up technological revolution that will lead to a second oil boom in the U.S., and that fear is now being realized.
A technological revolution spurred the U.S. oil boom that resulted in the greatest increase in domestic oil production in a century, and while that has stuttered in the face of a major oil price slump and an OPEC campaign to maintain a grip on market share, the American response could be another technological revolution that demonstrates that the first one was merely an impressive embryonic experiment.
It’s not only about shale now—it’s about reviving mature oil fields through advancements in enhanced oil recovery, potentially opening up not only new shale fields, but older fields that have been forgotten.
There are myriad gloom-and-doom stories about what is often alluded to as a short-lived oil boom in the U.S. But what many fail to understand is that revolutions of this nature are phased, with the advent of new technology typically followed by a temporary halt in progress while we study the results and come up with something even better.
