Energy Independence for U.S. Adds Up to Strategic ‘Game Changer’

It’s not just independence in 1776 that American can celebrate this month. The United States can also celebrate the fact that it has crossed a critical line in its pursuit of energy independence:We’re there.“Energy self-sufficiency is now in sight,” Phil Verleger, president of PKVerleger LLC, a prominent energy consultant and visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics said in a conversation.Daniel Yergin, a leading energy scholar and energy expert author of the much acclaimed Pulitzer-winning book: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, recently spoke to Bloomberg Markets Magazine (April 2, 2013 issue) of a ‘’renewed surge’’ in North American oil production that is well underway. “The U.S. is now in a position of being envied because of our energy vitality’’, he said.What is going on here? Two things turned the tide.One, is a gusher of oil extracted from sands coming down largely from the province of Alberta in Canada which now is estimated to hold proven reserves of 174 billion barrels of oil in its sands deposits, making it third after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela with the special distinction that Canada is not only next door but our most secure strategic Western ally.Second, came the so-called fracking technology, a procedure of creating fractures in rock formations by injecting fluid that has unleashed a massive bonanza of new cheap energy in the form of Natural gas — aclean, cheap, fuel for industry and a huge job creation vehicle.In scale this energy revolution, which unfolded over the past few years compares to huge productivity unleashed by the computer and Internet revolution of the last decade, creating jobs, industries and tons of innovations.It “is a game changer,” said Craig Alexander, chief economist from TD Bank Financial Group. “There’s no question we are seeing a renaissance in manufacturing because the cost advantage has shifted to the United States.” IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm, says that in the Chemical-manufacturing sector alone, companies are building plants worth an estimated $95 billion.The strategic consequences are hard to overstate.The West as a whole is no longer susceptible to oil blackmail. There can never be a repeat of the Arab oil embargo of 1973, when Saudi Arabia led other Persian Gulf producers to cut off oil to Europe and the United States to protest their support of Israel. American foreign policy cannot be held hostage by Mideast oligarchies and mullahs.Iran’s often-threatened military action to block oil shipments via the Hormuz Strait, no longer carries the same menace. To be sure if it ever happens it will push prices up in the short term, but the move’s largest victims will be the Persian gulf oil producers themselves, namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Iran itself, who will be deprived from the single resource accounting for 90% of their income.These nations export only two commodities: Oil and Islamic Fundamentalism. Without one they cannot fund the other.The dimension of this sea change in energy is reflected in the U.S. Energy Information AdministrationStatistics: Crude oil production in the US surged 14.3% in the past year to 9 million barrels a day now. To put it in perspective, the leap was the biggest since 1859, when Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial well, in Titusville, Pennsylvania.The natural gas revolution, however, stands in a class by itself. “This,’’ Mr. Verleger said ‘’is really the classic success of American entrepreneurs”. Indeed the United States is preparing to export natural gas now having achieved self-sufficiency.Experts are confident that within seven years the US will not need to import any oil from outside the Americas, either. Meanwhile North America is adding to the world energy pool cheaper new amounts with the net effect of keeping prices down despite the embargoes that have reduced Iranian oil production from 4 million barrels a day in 2006 to a little under 3 million now.There is little doubt than in a decade oil prices, which hover around $ 100 a barrel now, will drop closer to $ 70 dollar or less, by any measure a huge drop.It is safe to predict that together, the United States and Canada are well on their way to be energy royalties.Unfortunately the Obama administration is not harvesting the geopolitical value of this bonanza.To make the point dramatically, one wonders if the United States today would mobilize to liberate Kuwait, as it did in 1991, if Kuwait were again invaded by Iraq. The short answer is no. Do we have to bow to Saudi Arabia again? The answer here, too, is no. Nor will we be motivated to defend Bahrain or Saudi Arabia against Iran. These verities must be chilling to the Saudi and Persian Gulf monarchies, as the increasing Western loss of strategic interest coincides with the winds of Arab liberation.As for our European allies, they are much safer as well. Thanks to extraordinary deep water drilling technology advances—with unbelievable breakthroughs like horizontal drilling in waters thousands of feet deep—by American, British and Norwegian oil majors, Europe began to pump North Sea oil about the time of the 1973 oil embargo. By 2005 Norway and the UK were producing as much as 7 million barrels a dayAccording to published Department of Energy and EIA’s joint projections, that oil is fairly sure to hold at levels above 5 million barrels a day for some time to come.Another major European player, Russia, also entered the picture in the past 15 years, further displacing the Persian Gulf oil producers with massive supplies of natural gas to Europe.We have come a long way since that day in April 2, 1971, when Libya led a nascent OPEC to a price rise from $2.55 to $3.45 a barrel. By December of 2008, with OPEC firmly in existence, the price of oil hit an all time high of $ 140 a barrel.Now we are well on the trip back down.

Energy Independence for U.S. Adds Up to Strategic ‘Game Changer’

Energy Independence for U.S. Adds Up to Strategic ‘Game Changer’

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