Shale Oil: On the Cusp of an Energy Revolution?

This paper focuses on this new trend in global energy, and examines its influence on oil prices in the international markets, as well as its long-run economic, political, and geostrategic implications for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. This is the first academic study that examines the potential repercussions of the shale oil revolution on the economies of oil-exporting Arab countries, with a special focus on the GCC countries. The paper also presents a price-collapse scenario that will occur as a result of the US' shale oil revolution and the increasing global role of unconventional energy sources. This scenario is inspired by the "oil bust" model that took place during the mid-1980s because the causes for both are arguably the same, demonstrating that a new collapse in oil prices is probable.