GREAT AGAIN: Oil supply to swamp demand, squeeze OPEC in 2020, IEA says.

Even though growth in world oil demand will accelerate to 1.4 million barrels a day in 2020, it will be eclipsed by a 2.3 million barrel-a-day surge in output, as the ongoing boom in U.S. shale is augmented by new fields in Brazil, Norway and Canada.

As a result, the world will need significantly less crude from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the IEA, which advises most major economies, predicted in its monthly report on Friday. Though Saudi Arabia and its allies have been deliberately cutting supply this year, and political crises have crushed exports from Venezuela and Iran, OPEC is pumping much more oil than will be required in 2020. . . .

About half of the supply expansion will be provided by the U.S., which has been transformed by the fracking boom in Texas and North Dakota into the world’s biggest crude producer. But unlike in previous years, growth in America is being supplemented by significant gains elsewhere, such as in Norway and Brazil.

That may make for painful reading for the Saudis and other OPEC nations, who together pump 40% of the world’s oil.

Remember when Barack Obama told Sarah Palin she was stupid for thinking we could drill our way out of our oil dependency?