The Fracking Decade
by Noah Rothman
The malady afflicting the country was unmistakable, according to George W. Bush. “America is addicted to oil,” the president observed in his 2006 State of the Union address. This wasn’t just an observation. It was a call to arms. If the U.S. failed to wean itself off foreign oil, the consequences for the domestic economy and U.S. foreign policy would be grave. Doing so would require substantial investments in America’s ethanol industry as well as the development of oil deposits in pristine natural parks and off the nation’s shores.
In 2008, the U.S. produced an average of just 5 million barrels of oil per day—the nadir of domestic energy production since the exploitation of fossil fuels began in the late 19th century. By 2009, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude was approaching $150 per barrel. The U.S., therefore, was obliged to spend over $1 billion per day on oil imports from foreign countries, few of which could be considered models of good governance. America’s thirst for oil propped up abusive governments in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Syria.
But even as Bush addressed the nation in 2006, a remarkable new technology was quietly coming of age. It would have a profound impact on the American economy and geopolitics in the decade that followed. That technology—hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”—yielded an energy boom and scrambled assumptions about how the world would organize itself in the 2010s and beyond.
In 1998, a petroleum engineer named Nick Steinsberger pumped a slurry of sand, water, and chemicals under high pressure into a shale formation beneath a rural town just north of Fort Worth, Texas. It shattered the rock and released the natural gas trapped inside. A decade later, the petroleum industry discovered how to apply Steinsberger’s approach with directional drilling to free not just natural gas but the hydrocarbons that make up crude oil from subterranean rock formations.
At the beginning of the 2010s, the soaring price of oil and the low interest rates that followed the collapse of the mortgage market made the enormous costs associated with the development of techniques like fracking seem reasonable. Investment dollars poured into the firms that were pioneering unconventional drilling methods, and those firms began to apply those techniques to previously unexplored shale formations across the country.
By 2012, the U.S. was producing more domestic energy than it had since 1998, when Steinsberger fracked his first well. The following year, domestic American oil production exceeded imports for the first time since 1991. In June 2014, the price of crude oil peaked at $108 per barrel. On December 18, 2015, President Barack Obama signed a law repealing the 1975 ban on the export of domestically produced petroleum products. In January 2016, the global price of crude oil plunged to just under $30 per barrel.
In November 2014, the Saudis rejected calls from poorer OPEC member states to cut production rates in the effort to prop up sliding crude prices. That slide became a collapse, sending benchmark Brent Crude prices below $72 per barrel. Indeed, led by Saudi Arabia and Iraq, OPEC’s response to the challenge posed by American wells wasn’t to cut production but increase it. “It should be in the interest of OPEC to live with lower prices for a little while in order to slow down development projects in the United States,” one petrochemical consultant told Reuters.
The U.S. did not slow down.
At the end of 2018, the U.S. produced nearly 18 million barrels of petroleum products (crude oil, natural gas, and refinery products) per day. For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. had outpaced Saudi Arabia’s output, and estimates showed that it also surpassed Russian oil production. By 2022, the United States is forecast to become a net energy exporter for the first time in nearly 70 years.
The commercial effects of reduced energy prices were unmistakable, but the impact of the fracking revolution on geopolitics was less immediately apparent. It would not be long, though, before that would become clear, too. According to the recent congressional testimony of former National Security Council official Fiona Hill, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the threat to his country’s position posed by American fracking technology as early as 2011. He was soon feeling the pain. In November 2013, the U.S.-based multinational Chevron signed a deal with Ukraine and its Russia-friendly president to develop the country’s domestic shale-gas deposits—wresting control of the country’s energy sector from Moscow, which wields its oil and gas exports like a weapon. By late 2014, Russia was forced to contemplate a net 10 percent reduction in domestic spending to compensate for the revenue lost amid falling oil prices.
by Noah Rothman
The malady afflicting the country was unmistakable, according to George W. Bush. “America is addicted to oil,” the president observed in his 2006 State of the Union address. This wasn’t just an observation. It was a call to arms. If the U.S. failed to wean itself off foreign oil, the consequences for the domestic economy and U.S. foreign policy would be grave. Doing so would require substantial investments in America’s ethanol industry as well as the development of oil deposits in pristine natural parks and off the nation’s shores.
In 2008, the U.S. produced an average of just 5 million barrels of oil per day—the nadir of domestic energy production since the exploitation of fossil fuels began in the late 19th century. By 2009, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude was approaching $150 per barrel. The U.S., therefore, was obliged to spend over $1 billion per day on oil imports from foreign countries, few of which could be considered models of good governance. America’s thirst for oil propped up abusive governments in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Syria.
But even as Bush addressed the nation in 2006, a remarkable new technology was quietly coming of age. It would have a profound impact on the American economy and geopolitics in the decade that followed. That technology—hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”—yielded an energy boom and scrambled assumptions about how the world would organize itself in the 2010s and beyond.
In 1998, a petroleum engineer named Nick Steinsberger pumped a slurry of sand, water, and chemicals under high pressure into a shale formation beneath a rural town just north of Fort Worth, Texas. It shattered the rock and released the natural gas trapped inside. A decade later, the petroleum industry discovered how to apply Steinsberger’s approach with directional drilling to free not just natural gas but the hydrocarbons that make up crude oil from subterranean rock formations.
At the beginning of the 2010s, the soaring price of oil and the low interest rates that followed the collapse of the mortgage market made the enormous costs associated with the development of techniques like fracking seem reasonable. Investment dollars poured into the firms that were pioneering unconventional drilling methods, and those firms began to apply those techniques to previously unexplored shale formations across the country.
By 2012, the U.S. was producing more domestic energy than it had since 1998, when Steinsberger fracked his first well. The following year, domestic American oil production exceeded imports for the first time since 1991. In June 2014, the price of crude oil peaked at $108 per barrel. On December 18, 2015, President Barack Obama signed a law repealing the 1975 ban on the export of domestically produced petroleum products. In January 2016, the global price of crude oil plunged to just under $30 per barrel.
In November 2014, the Saudis rejected calls from poorer OPEC member states to cut production rates in the effort to prop up sliding crude prices. That slide became a collapse, sending benchmark Brent Crude prices below $72 per barrel. Indeed, led by Saudi Arabia and Iraq, OPEC’s response to the challenge posed by American wells wasn’t to cut production but increase it. “It should be in the interest of OPEC to live with lower prices for a little while in order to slow down development projects in the United States,” one petrochemical consultant told Reuters.
The U.S. did not slow down.
At the end of 2018, the U.S. produced nearly 18 million barrels of petroleum products (crude oil, natural gas, and refinery products) per day. For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. had outpaced Saudi Arabia’s output, and estimates showed that it also surpassed Russian oil production. By 2022, the United States is forecast to become a net energy exporter for the first time in nearly 70 years.
The commercial effects of reduced energy prices were unmistakable, but the impact of the fracking revolution on geopolitics was less immediately apparent. It would not be long, though, before that would become clear, too. According to the recent congressional testimony of former National Security Council official Fiona Hill, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the threat to his country’s position posed by American fracking technology as early as 2011. He was soon feeling the pain. In November 2013, the U.S.-based multinational Chevron signed a deal with Ukraine and its Russia-friendly president to develop the country’s domestic shale-gas deposits—wresting control of the country’s energy sector from Moscow, which wields its oil and gas exports like a weapon. By late 2014, Russia was forced to contemplate a net 10 percent reduction in domestic spending to compensate for the revenue lost amid falling oil prices.
