The likelihood that the US will become the world’s largest oil producer by the end of the decade is not the game-changer that it may first appear. Total oil output in the US has already surged to a level which is close to that in Russia (the current no.1) and Saudi Arabia (no.2). US energy prices, particularly natural gas and coal, are also already much lower than they would otherwise have been. Nonetheless, the diffusion of US shale technology to the rest of the world is one of at least three major new developments that should eventually drag global energy costs down further too.
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