The Middle East will dominate again, says IEA

Middle East oil will dominate again when US supplies fade - unless high oil prices spur more efficiency first, writes Derek Brower

North America's soaring tight-oil output is stealing market share from Opec. But the Middle East's low-cost oil will be critical when the American burst fades after 2020, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. For now, the North American surge continues. US output will reach 11 million barrels a day (b/d) by 2015, making it the largest producer in the world two years earlier than the IEA predicted last year, the agency's chief economist Fatih Birol said. But the trend of rising output from the country was unlikely to continue after the 2020s, he said. And Birol cautioned against giving "wrong signals" to Mideast producers that the world didn't need more oil from the region, lest they st