Hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – has been at the center of controversies about contaminating water sources and causing earthquakes.
This article considers three principal drivers for the oil trade: technology, weather and OPEC policy: • Fracking technology is highly influential: The graphs “Crude oil historical patterns”, showing changes over the last 5 years compared to the last 15 and 30 years, and the graph “US Crude oil production” from1983 to 2017, show the relevant impact.• Extreme weather: A growing number of weather events costing $1 billion have been experienced, as well as significant losses in production. • OPEC strategy is less effective now… The graphic “Does OPEC policy influence prices anymore?” asks a very pertinent question.
Over the past year oil companies have discovered volumes on Alaska’s North Slope totaling as much as five billion barrels or more of recoverable oil – a 14 percent increase in U.S. proven reserves. A number of these new wells will be fracked using techniques similar to those now employed in the lower 48, as opposed to the more limited in scope fracking operations that have been utilized in the region since the 1980s. If these new discoveries become producing fields, Alaska will write a new chapter in the U.S. oil industry’s dramatic ascent.
