A Visual of Shale Oil's Impact on American Imports

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CO recently ran a Bloomberg story on Texas shale's impact on both OPEC's energy exports to the United States and OPEC's share of the world crude oil and natural gas market.

The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs would like to highlight in particular a chart that was buried in the lower pages of that story that underscores the impact of shale oil and natural gas on America's traditional role as massive energy importer. This visual communicates in the most explicit terms how quickly America's prior dependence on OPEC, Canadian, and Mexican energy imports has fallen due to shale hydraulic fracturing.