A report titled “How the U.S. Energy Renaissance Is Changing the Global Investment Outlook” was released in late January by the Wall Street economic and policy research firm International Strategy & Investment.
Its conclusions offer ample insight into the many changes that have recently occurred in our country’s energy outlook:
The International Energy Agency now predicts that the U.S. will be the world’s largest natural-gas producer by 2015, surpassing current leader Russia. Statistics compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and ISI’s integrated-oil analyst Doug Terreson indicate that the share of energy from domestic sources will rise from 79 percent of consumption today to 87 percent by 2020 and that the majority of the other 13 percent will come from Canada or Mexico.
In essence, the report indicates that by the end of this decade, North America will become energy independent, thanks to technological advances such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The report goes on to single out domestic natural gas production as one of the bright spots in America’s current economic outlook:
The U.S. now has one of the lowest prices for natural gas in the world, averaging $3 per MBtu (1 cubic foot of natural gas is equal to 1,000 British thermal units of heat energy) compared with $15 in Japan, $13 in South Korea, and $11 in Germany.
Read more HERE.