The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

But the new drilling techniques will presumably be exported to other countries...

sorry for parsing your comment but just because a particular technique is useful in one country/area does not mean that it can or will be used in another country. The constraints include: geology, technical skills, and variable property laws. For example, once the Canadians demonstrated the effectiveness of SAGD many other countries thought it would solve their heavy oil recovery problems. Nopy. Another example: I think France has outright banned hydraulic fracturing and while it's been tried in Poland, it hasn't proven to be as successful there. Until recently people thought Argentina would be a wonderful place to use new production techniques. Folks are now having 2nd thoughts that, of course, have nothing to do with physics and geology.