A top energy watchdog said the world will need more Middle Eastern oil in the next decade, as the current U.S. boom wanes. But the International Energy Agency warned that Persian Gulf producers may still fail to fill the gap, risking higher oil prices. In its first update to the agency’s energy investment outlook in more than a decade, the IEA–which represents some of the world’s largest consumer nations–said it sees “growth in oil demand [becoming] steadily more reliant on investment in the Middle East.” Surging American production from tight oil–extracted from shale formations in places like Texas and North Dakota–has led the agency and other oil-market analysts to predict the U.S. could leapfrog the world’s largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia, by 2020. That has triggered debate in Washington about easing a long-standing ban on most crude exports from American shores. It has also […]