Is Saudi Arabia Trying to Cripple American Fracking? | Foreign Policy
"The fact is, Saudi Arabia has little to fear from shale. Saudi Arabia’s huge reserves of conventional oil can and probably will be produced for decades after the shale boom has run its course — which the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects to happen by 2050 or so — and at much lower costs.
The numbers indicate that Saudi Arabia’s suffering from the so-called “shale revolution” has been quite minimal.
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But the United States is importing less oil, you say, and the Saudis don’t like that. Perhaps, but it is not really hurting them much. Because U.S. refineries are geared to accept very particular grades of oil, the sudden appearance of an ocean of domestic U.S. “light crude” means that almost all the “lost” market share has fallen on African oil producers: Nigeria, Angola, and Algeria, in particular, whose own light grade crude has been displaced by oil from the U.S.-based Marcellus, Bakken, and Eagle Ford shale fields."