Most of the attention in the energy sector recently has been focused on the boom in U.S. shale oil and gas production. These unconventional resources have led a resurgence that has already made the U.S. the world's largest natural gas producer, and many analysts expect the country to surpass Saudi Arabia as the top oil producer within the decade.
But Stanley Reed of the International Herald Tribune pointed to another trend that emerged, somewhat less obviously, at the recent Oil and Money conference in London, hosted by the IHT and Energy Intelligence. While the shale revolution has been pushed by some of the world's biggest publicly-traded energy firms, Reed notes that national oil companies are starting to carve out an increasingly large role for themselves, and could start to take a leading position in coming years.
Several national oil companies have started aggressive expansion campaigns in the past few years. Rosneft has managed to consolidate much of the Russian oil industry with the purchase of TNK-BP from BP and Russian oil group AAR - one of the largest takeovers in the history of the oil industry. Meanwhile, China National Offshore Oil Corp. is still hoping to complete a $15 billion purchase of Canadian energy firm Nexen, the largest bid ever made by a Chinese oil company.
Other national oil companies have made a variety of deals designed to consolidate control of domestic resources, broaden access to oil reserves abroad and often to bring in expertise on new methods and technologies.
Shale opens eyes
As much as the new assertiveness of these oil giants itself threatens to reshape the energy market in coming years, however, one of the biggest shifts could come as this undercurrent meets the most prominent trend in the industry. If national oil companies gain access to the massive untapped unconventional reserves, it could ultimately have a broader impact on the market than even the resurgence of the U.S. energy sector.
For a long time, the traditional energy powerhouses have denied the importance of shale oil and gas to the future of the energy sector. Russia's Gazprom long dismissed the potential for shale gas from the U.S. to influence its primary markets in Europe, only to have President Vladimir Putin recently push the company to reverse its position on shale exploration in the country.
In 2011, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' World Oil Outlook made almost no reference to the potential for shale oil. However, in this year's report, the group estimates that the unconventional source could provide as much as 2 million barrels per day by the end of the decade and 3 million barrels per day by 2035.
Nationals take an unconventional turn
The recent deals alone are already starting to give these national energy companies increased access to unconventional sources.
If CNOOC successfully purchases Nexen, it will take a major stake in Alberta's oil sands. Meanwhile, all three of the Chinese oil majors are in talks with GE Oil & Gas for help developing the country's sizable shale gas deposits, a venture that has met with little success to this point, according to China Daily.
In Russia, Rosneft has arranged for Exxon Mobil to take BP's place in planned exploration of the massive Bazhenov shale deposit in Siberia - a deposit potentially as much as 80 times larger than the Bakken formation in North Dakota.
"By necessity, Americans have gotten really good at squeezing the last drop of oil out of rock," Tom Reed, the chief financial officer for an independent oil company Ruspetro operating in part of the Bazhenov, explained to The New York Times. But with Russia and others starting to realize that they can economically produce some of their unconventional reserves, the equation for the entire industry could soon change.