Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. oil market could be on
the verge of its own fracking revolution, similar to what
the natural-gas market is already experiencing. As a
result, domestic production is now projected to rise
significantly over the coming decades, reducing the
relative share of imports in U.S. oil consumption.
Advances in horizontal drilling and hydrofracking, in
which highly pressurized liquids are injected into
underground rock, have been used increasingly over the past
few years to extract natural gas. The result has been a
substantial increase in recoverable reserves -- accompanied
by a lot of controversy over fracking’s environmental
effects -- and an associated decline in the cost of natural
gas.
