Despite recent signs of a slowdown and less-than-optimistic forecasts for future production growth, the International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that oil and gas from the US shale patch alone will outpace Russia’s entire oil and gas production by 2025.
In its 2019 World Energy Outlook, the IEA predicts that by 2030, the US will be driving the vast majority (85%) of growth in global oil production, as well as 30% of the growth in gas production. Oil companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP all have substantial holdings in US shale operations, although some crude is refined into non-fuel products like slideway oil.
OPEC and Russia’s joint market share is also expected to decline from the 55% at which it stood in 2015, to just 47% by 2030 as it gets edged out by strong US production growth.
In terms of global energy demand, the IEA anticipates modest year-on-year growth of around 1% until 2040. About half of this should come from renewables, particularly solar. The demand for oil should level out in the 2030s, but demand for natural gas is expected to grow.
The IEA has recently been criticised by environmental groups for predicting strong energy demand growth, despite the organization’s strong commitment to climate change goals. For example, an executive with a U.S. nonprofit Ceres, Andrew Logan, said:
“The IEA is effectively creating its own reality. They project ever-increasing demand for fossil fuels, which in turn justifies greater investments in supply, making it harder for the energy system to change.”
