Great news, but I find it curious...
Why couldn’t this have happened when GWB was in office? The Bush family is in oil and are from Texas if I remember correctly. And W spoke of energy independence at one time as well.
By contrast, Obama supposedly hates anything but green energy (and hates anything good for America for that matter), but oil is bigger than ever in places like Texas and North Dakota.
What am I missing?
You are missing the leap forward in Technology that occurred recently that has opened up field (or re-opened them up) that were previously not producing or were under producing.
The technology advancement of horizontal steerable drill was just beginning to grow in commercial operation when combined with hydraulic fracturing during most of the Bush Administration years. It was really taking off as he left office.
What you are missing is that innnovation and implementation of new production technology have nothing to do with the current (or past) occupant of the White House. As long as there is money to be made, creative and risk tolerant companies and individuals will find a way to make it. The occupant of the White House is unfortunately the baneficiary of these events. People who do not understand the industry (such as yourself) for some reason draw a causal connection between the current politicians in power and economic strides made by private industry in spite of their policies.
But just give the EPA a couple of more years and they will figure out a way to screw it up.
Politicians get paid off by the Saudis not to make the USA energy independent. That’s why they all get so wealthy when they move to DC and nothing is ever really done to move us in that direction. BO lives like a Saudi prince. Payoffs must be huge. Course I have no proof of this, it’s just my humble opinion.
Yesterday, the Boston NPR station had an interview with some solar and wind people, and they were all bitching about how fracking and the new oil boom were cutting into their business opportunities. The hosts of the show did plenty of their own hand-wringing and made their disapproval very clear.
It was hilarious listening to them squirm.
The other factor that was left out by the other Freepers was the price of oil has been pretty steady in that $75-100/bbl range. The price was all over during the Bush administration.
I do not believe this technology is profitable under $50/bbl.
Thackney would know better than I.
One of the things I hear holding backing drilling up in ND is just the lack of storage/pipeline to put the oil. They can drill the wells faster than they get build the infastructure to move the product to market. There is only so much pipeline capacity available. Also, you can only load so many rail tank cars in a day on the BNSF or CPRS railroads.