“The oil industry was born in the United States a century and a half ago in the hills of Western Pennsylvania. And for the industry’s first hundred years, the Western Hemisphere was the leading petroleum-producing region in the world. But after World War II, oil production from the Middle East began to grow spectacularly, a development that only accelerated in the 1950’s and 1060’s. …. Now a new energy axis is emerging, running from western Canada, through North Dakota and Texas to Brazil. It is leading to a revival in hemispheric oil production, one with major implications … for the world economy and geopolitics. … it has happened almost accidentally , a product of market signals and quite separate [private] initiatives and technological advances.”
-Daniel Yergin and James Burkhard, WSJ, March 6, 2012
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