The U.S. shale industry has moved faster over this past year than many expected. America sits as the world’s largest oil and natural gas producer for the fifth year in a row, with record exports. Research has determined that fracking isn’t harmful to communities nearby, and emissions from oil drilling activities have fallen even as production has risen. Here are the top three stories that touched the shale industry in 2017.
Life Became Easier for Drillers
The Obama administration was responsible for environmental regulations that were unnecessarily burdensome on the drilling industry. The Trump administration has moved swiftly to lighten the burden. The EPA’s New Source Performance Standards rule has been defunded, and duplicative Bureau of Land Management fracking rules have been rescinded. The result has been lower costs for the drilling industry.
Shale Boom Took Manufacturing to New Heights
Ensuring blue-collar manufacturing jobs in greater numbers is essential to the economy, but these have been hard to come by for a simple reason – a lack of resources. The boom in shale drilling, however, has put enough affordable oil into the pipeline that there has been a major surge in the production of cheap plastics to fuel manufacturing. It has been directly responsible for the highest levels of manufacturing output seen in more than a decade, and the starting of chemical industry projects worth $185 billion. Close to a half-million jobs are expected to be created over the next seven years.
Investment in American Shale Drilling Skyrocketed
Investment in the drilling industry in the Middle East grew at 4% last year; in the U.S., however, investment in the shale drilling industry grew at 53%. Huge deals were announced – $20 billion in private equity investments was raised for energy projects in each quarter, and companies from EQT to Exxon Mobil announced multibillion-dollar land acquisition deals.
According to Sigma Drilling Technologies, producer of pulsation dampeners and other pulsation control equipment used by oil and gas drillers, oil producers are so bullish about the prospects of this industry, they are expected to put $100 billion into drilling projects over the coming year.
