US oil imports will fall to their lowest level for more than 25 years next year, as production booms while demand grows only slowly, according to a government forecast.
The US Energy Information Administration predicted that net imports of liquid fuels, including crude oil and petroleum products, would fall to about 6m barrels per day in 2014, their lowest level since 1987 and only about half their peak levels of more than 12m during 2004-07.
The figures reflect the spectacular growth of US production thanks to the unlocking of "tight oil" reserves using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in states led by North Dakota and Texas.
Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry lobby group, said the US was at "a great turning point in our nation's history", that would "realign the energy axis toward the west and into our own control".
The declining US dependence on imports will still bring benefits, including increased resilience to crude price shocks and job creation in the oil industry.
The EIA also said it expected increased US production to put downward pressure on oil prices. It forecast that internationally traded Brent crude would drop from an average of $112 per barrel last year to $99 in 2014, while US West Texas Intermediate dropped from $94 to $91.
US crude production hit a low point of 5m b/d in 2008, but rebounded to 6.43m last year and is expected by the EIA to rise to almost 8m in 2014.
At the same time, consumption has been falling, from 20.7m b/d, for all liquid fuels, in 2007, to 18.7m last year. The EIA expects it to rise very slightly over the next couple of years, but expects that the US will still use less oil in 2014 than in 2011.
The surge in production in the US has led some forecasters, including the International Energy Agency, the rich countries' think-tank, to predict that it will overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's largest oil producer by the end of the decade.
(Financial Times)
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