Environmental catastrophe and economic gains .. Is America flooding the planet with oil?

The United States may be able to “flood the world with oil” over the next decade, predicting a catastrophe for climate change efforts, amid expectations that America's new oil and gas fields will produce more than double what Saudi Arabia produces today.

US oil and gas production is expected to account for 61 percent of global production over the next decade, Nick Cunningham said in a report published by Oil Price.

A recent report by Global Witness said that oil and gas exploration in new fields anywhere in the world should be stopped to avoid its effects on climate change.

But the writer said that this will cause a deficit, because the world consumes about 100 million barrels of oil per day.

Global Witness points out that the oil industry is not falling in the United States, despite recent cuts in spending by independent oil and gas companies, which suffer from financial difficulties, according to the author.

He also said the merger of the Permian shale oil basin and other basins, which are run by major US oil companies, ensures that exploration will continue at a steady pace in the years to come.

New projects
The global oil industry is poised to launch $ 123 billion of new offshore oil projects this year, nearly double the value spent last year, the writer said.

Despite the slight decline in shale oil exploration over the past year - amid investor uncertainty and weak financial returns - the pace of offshore exploration projects has begun to accelerate.

The United States is already the largest producer of oil and natural gas and its production has begun to rise in recent years.

But in 2018, US oil and gas production rose 12 percent and 16 percent, respectively, he said.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, the United States surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil production last year.

The superiority of Texas
A group of US states alone outperform the rest of the world in oil production. "If Texas was an independent country, it would have been the most oil and gas producing country in the world."

According to Global Witness, Texas could account for 28 percent of total additional production between 2020 and 2029, with Canada and Pennsylvania second and third with 7 percent each.

According to the writer, New Mexico will account for 5%, while North Dakota will hold 4%.

Production in Oklahoma, Brazil, Colorado, Russia and Ohio will be 3%.

In other words, seven US states will be among the top ten sources of oil and gas production in the world over the next decade.

Warning
"If things remain the same, new oil and gas fields in the United States by the end of the next decade will produce more than double what Saudi Arabia is producing today," the group said.

In fact, this is a major challenge. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, "our analysis reveals that global oil and gas production should fall by 40% over the next decade," Global Witness said.

The report warned that instead of falling, US oil and gas production is expected to increase by 25% during this time due to the expansion of drilling in new fields.