Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 09/2012

Global Oil Production is Surging: Implications for Prices, Geopolitics, and the Environment

Leonardo Maugeri

June 2012

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Abstract

A new study by Belfer Center Geopolitics of Energy researcher Leonardo Maugeri finds that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020. This could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices. The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.