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mornelithe on 26 April 2016
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Goatseye said:
mornelithe said:

Quite easily, actually.  You're thinking traditional oil (oil rigs) sources.  However, the advancements in Shale oil recovery, the US actually has considerable amount of oil and natural gas, on it's soil.  There's a reason why gas prices have dropped as far as they have.  Shale oil and natural gas production in the US has helped directly attack OPEC's stranglehold on the industry.  Both sides basically were pumping out as much as possible to see who'd flinch first.  The thing is, the further oil and natural gas prices go down, the more harm to Russia's economy, which OPEC may not be interested in, but the US certainly is.

Actually, correction, it would appear that their may be some kind of kerfluffle inside OPEC, as there are articles all over suggesting that Saudi Arabia and the US were colluding to drive oil prices down to harm the Russian economy.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/23/investing/saudi-arabia-opec-revolt-oil-prices/

"The real game changer here has been the U.S.

OPEC didn't see the shale revolution coming and now it lacks appealing options to respond to the resulting oil glut.

OPEC also seems to have underestimated shale's resiliency and flexibility. Last year's decision to keep production steady has not been a knockout punch to shale. And shale producers remain ready to ramp up production as soon as prices go higher.

"Shale technology has changed this industry forever. It's not going to disappear. It can only get better because it's based on technology. Time is not on OPEC's side," said Gheit, the Oppenheimer analyst.

The Saudis would love to get U.S. producers to agree to stop flooding the market with oil. The problem is that the U.S. energy industry, unlike OPEC, is not a cartel designed to fix prices.

"There is no Mr. Shale that Saudi Arabia can call. In the U.S., it's everybody on their own," said Bloomberg's Chladek."

That's all nice and dandy; however, the technology is expanding beyond US. India, one of worlds biggest oil consumer, is on the verge of digging multiple shale oil wells enough to cut their foreign depence on oil starting 2017. From now on, it's not just Russian economy that's gonna be expecting low returns on oil sales.

Please stop moving the goalposts.  You asked if we were going to directly compete with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia etc..., and I said we already are, not only that, it would appear we're colluding with Saudi Arabia to quite literally pummel the oil/natural gas prices to hurt the Russian economy.  If India starts producing Shale oil, that just impacts the global price of oil and natural gas more and further destabilizes the Russian economy...pretty sure the US is ok with that.  And besides, it's not like the US Government can stop Shale oil production, it's not Government controlled, only a Congressional action likely based upon environmental concerns, could impact shale production in the US.  The US is a free market/capitalist economy, it is NOT like OPEC.  The article I linked talks about that fact.