WEO-2013 workshop on The Future of the Tight Liquids Revolution

Background

The rapid increase in production of Light Tight Oil (LTO) and of Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) from shale plays in the United States is re-shaping expectations about the global oil outlook. Further growth from these sources in the US, alongside the potential for growth in other countries, could have long-lasting implications for global crude and oil product markets.

The World Energy Outlook (WEO) will include in 2013 a special focus on the prospects for the oil sector. This will look in detail at the outlook for supply, demand and trade (including for the first time a disaggregated look at oil products and the refining sector). A key element of the WEO analysis will be to examine how the revolution in the production of tight liquids might evolve in North America and beyond. This workshop aims to provide essential inputs to this analysis, by seeking answers to the following questions:

• How much do we know about the size of global LTO resources?
• How can we best understand and project the dynamics of LTO production? Even in known LTO plays, output depends critically on the pace of future drilling – what are the key variables that will affect continued investment?
• Where, outside North America, are the prospects for LTO production brightest?
• Shale plays are adding to an already rapid growth in NGL supply – where are these NGLs going to be used? Does the rise of NGLs contain the seeds of its own demise with NGLs prices tumbling down?
• How will these developments affect future oil market conditions, the refining sector and global trade flows?

This workshop is intended to bring together policymakers, industry representatives and other stakeholders – by invitation only – to exchange views on these questions. The results of the meeting will be instrumental in shaping the key findings and messages of the World Energy Outlook 2013 focus on oil.

The meeting will be informal in nature and will be held according to the Chatham House Rule, according to which participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. Each session will be introduced with short presentations by invited experts, to be followed by an open roundtable discussion.