Saudi Arabia and OPEC may have dropped oil prices to stifle production in the U.S. and other competing nations, but they didn’t drop it enough to stifle the U.S. oil and gas boom from fracking, a senior expert with McKinsey and Company said in Chicago. “If the Saudis think they’re going to put U.S. shale players out of business, they’re probably not, although there will be less drilling,” Joe Quoyeser told about 125 people, mostly graduate students, at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Energy Conference on Wednesday. ”But there are other elements of oil supply that are needed to balance the market that will have a hard time competing at $50 a barrel, including oil sands in Canada and much of the deepwater resources.” Oil sands have to be heated to extract petroleum, a process that requires natural gas. Even at today’s low gas prices, that fixed cost means oil sands only become viable at […]