The US is poised to realise its cherished dream of oil independence, although not until around 2035, the International Energy Agency says in a report published this week.
US presidents going back to the 1970s have made freedom from oil imports a key target. "Most of us went away laughing when they used to say this but now it looks a real possibility," says Paul Stevens, an energy researcher at London policy institute Chatham House.
US energy consumption has probably peaked, while oil and gas supplies have been massively boosted by the extraction of previously uneconomic deposits. This has been made possible through the new technologies of fracturing oil-bearing rocks and extracting gas from loose shale rock by drilling into it horizontally.
The IEA says the US will become a net exporter by 2030 and self-sufficient by 2035. The agency also predicts the US will overtake Saudi Arabia in the mid-2020s as the world's largest oil producer.
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