According to the 2014 data and the midterm report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), despite last year’s historic collapse in prices in the oil energy market, the United States became the world leader in oil production and pushed Russia to 2nd place. Throughout the year, the U.S. has increased production by 1.5 million barrels. or 11.81 million per day (one barrel is equivalent to 42 U.S. gallons).

During that same period, Russia increased by 50,000 barrels per day up which pushed it to outputting 10.93 million total that year. Saudi Arabia continues to occupy 3rd place. The IEA also predicts that the leading countries in the oil energy market will continue to see growth all the way into the year 2020.

“Last year’s drop in oil prices proposed a real challenge for slate manufacturers with oil prices at $50 per barrel. Only 40% of them even reached the break-even point,” the IEA said. They continued to state that these shocking changes in the oil and gas market forced producers to reconsider and reduce the cost of production, increasing efficiency. At the same time, however, some oil companies began to actually invest more money into new territory in the hopes of finding oil provinces similar to America’s largest deposits of oil such as the Eagle Ford region and the Bakken formation.

Andrey Avramenko