The EIU on North America’s oil and gas boom

Economist Intelligence Unit: Ten years ago, if you told an American that by 2012 the US would produce more oil and gas than it could readily use, he might have questioned your sanity. Yet this is what is happening, driven by advances in extracting oil and gas from shale rock. Across the northern border, meanwhile, Canada is busily tapping into its prodigious tar-sands resources. On both fronts, US energy supplies have begun to look more secure.

At the same time, gluts are building up. Pipeline infrastructure is under strain and the prices of gas and some types of oil have dropped. How much longer can the North American hydrocarbons boom last? What is the outlook for prices? How will surging petroleum production find its way from fields to the buyers who need it? Can the US achieve oil self-sufficiency, or even energy independence? These are among the questions addressed in this special report, which collects recent articles published by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Energy Briefing & Forecasts service.