Goldman Sachs made a prediction on Sunday, September 11, that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producing country by 2017. This significant production boost will occur as a result of utilizing a new definition of oil and generous estimates for the amount of liquids-rich shale production that can occur, The Oil Drum reports.

The investment bank has claimed that the country’s daily production of oil will grow from 8.3 million to 10.9 million barrels of oil per day (Mbopd) by the year 2017, according to the media outlet. This level of production would exceed both Saudi Arabia and Russia, which is currently the top oil producer. The European and Asian country should only increase its oil production by 100,000 barrels during this period, which would result in a total output of 10.7 Mbopd, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

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How Goldman Sachs arrived at its current production estimate of 8.3 Mbopd is ambiguous, The Oil Drum reports. The Energy Information Agency states that daily production averaged 5.6 Mbopd in June. The media outlet speculates that the investment bank erroneously included natural gas liquids and liquefied refinery gases in oil, but even then the numbers only total 7.8 Mbopd.

– Keith Schaefer
Publisher, the Oil & Gas Investments Bulletin