Tight oil also stands to have a substantial economic impact. The enormous cost of drilling tens of thousands of wells – which can run $10-million (U.S.) each, not including the cost of acquiring land – will pour hundreds of billions into domestic wages and manufacturing. The fact that Americans will be buying U.S. gas at the pumps will also have a meaningful impact on the dollars the country sends abroad every year.
"There might be some possibility that we could ... pretty much reduce our oil imports to zero," said Leta Smith, director of oil and gas supply outlooks with IHS CERA. "That's a really optimistic case. And that's not what we're forecasting right now. But still, it's an interesting question to postulate."
The sun that shines on the Bakken, it seems, is shining on America itself.
The other uncertainty involves just how well the Bakken wildfire will spread. It's already having a major impact in places like the Eagle Ford play in Texas, where the oil flow has doubled this year from 80,000 barrels a day in January. But how much oil will companies squeeze out of the Niobrara in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming? Or the Monterrey in California? Or the Utica in Ohio?
Today, the U.S. imports 9.2 million barrels a day of oil – two million of that from Canada, 4.9 million from OPEC countries. In the next 10 to 15 years, tight oil may supply an extra 3.5 million barrels a day,
The oil sands, if pipelines like TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL are approved, can pour out an additional 1.2 million barrels a day. And tightening fuel efficiency standards in the U.S., where the Obama administration has proposed rules requiring new cars to average 50 miles per gallon (4.7 litres per 100 kilometres), could drop annual demand by nearly three million barrels.
By those estimates, weaning the U.S. off OPEC crude seems possible.
