"Tight oil" boom to fuel supply, says BP Surging production of unconventional oil will provide all the net growth in global oil supply to 2020, as the boom in "tight oil" ramps up and biofuels take off, according to BP. In its latest energy outlook, BP said the shale revolution that had transformed the US energy market would spread to other parts of the world, with global output of shale gas trebling and tight oil growing more than sixfold by 2030. But Christof Rühl, BP's chief economist, cautioned that others will be slow to follow the US's lead, with North America "dominating" production of such resources over the next two decades. He said other potential shale producers, such as China, lacked the unique combination of factors that had helped to bring about the extraordinary boom in so-called unconventional oil and gas seen in the US. These included a robust oilfield services sector, with large fleets of drilling rigs, sophisticated financial markets, a favourable fiscal regime and private ownership of reserves. "No other country outside the US and Canada has yet succeeded in combining these factors to support production growth," Mr Rühl said. Techniques such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing - or "fracking" - have redrawn North America's energy landscape, unlocking vast reserves of shale gas that were long thought uneconomic. The shale boom has fuelled a near-20 per cent rise in US gas production over the past five years. That surge pushed US gas prices to 10-year lows last year as the country's gas deficit turned into a surplus. There are now hopes that the plentiful supplies of cheap gas, a key feedstock in petrochemicals, could spur an industrial renaissance in the US. The shale gas revolution has now spread to oil, with production from North Dakota's Bakken Shale increasing from 100,000 barrels a day five years ago to more than 1m b/d. Overall, US oil production rose by 760,000b/d last year - the largest annual increase since crude oil started to be pumped commercially in the US in 1859. BP said the US will overtake Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world's largest oil producer this year, on the back of higher tight oil and biofuels production and expected cuts in Opec supply. BP said the US would be 99 per cent self-sufficient in net energy by 2030 at the same time as large emerging economies such as China and India see their dependence on energy imports rise - a shift that "will have major impacts on trade balances." But the two countries" shale resources were considerable. BP said that Asia has an estimated 57tn cubic metres of technically recoverable shale gas resources and 50bn barrels of tight oil, compared with 47tn cu m and 70bn barrels respectively for North America. BP said Russia and China were the two countries most likely to develop their tight oil reserves, since both have strong service sectors and are expected to introduce fiscal incentives to encourage unconventional energy production. BP said it expected Russia to be producing 1.4m b/d of tight oil and China 500,000b/d by 2030. It also forecast that China would be "the most successful in developing shale gas outside North America," with shale accounting for 20 per cent of total Chinese gas production by 2030.