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The United States will stride past Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's top oil producer by 2016, the West's energy agency said, bringing Washington closer to energy self-sufficiency and reducing the need for OPEC supply. But by 2020, the oilfields of Texas and North Dakota will be past their prime and the Middle East will regain its dominance—especially as a supplier to Asia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday. The IEA, which advises large industrialized nations on energy policy, predicted in its 2012 World Energy Outlook the United States would surpass Riyadh as top producer in 2017. A report last month by leading U.S. energy consultancy PIRA said the U.S. has already overtaken Saudi Arabia to become the world's biggest oil producer.



Introducing this year's outlook, IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said the agency now expects the re-ordering by 2016—at the latest.

(Read more: Iran nuclear talks fail: Where next for oil?) "We see two chapters in the oil markets. Up to 2020, we expect the light, tight oil to increase—would call it a surge. And due to the increase coming from Brazil, the need for Middle East oil in the next few years will definitely be less," he told Reuters in an interview. "But due to the limited resource base (of U.S. tight oil), it is going to plateau and decline. After 2020 there will be a major dominance of Middle East oil." The IEA said oil prices would continue to rise and spur development of unconventional resources such as the light, tight oil that has fueled the U.S. oil boom, oil sands in Canada, deepwater production in Brazil and natural gas liquids. Oil prices will climb steadily to $128 a barrel in 2012 terms by 2035—up $3 from 2012's outlook.

(Read more: Do Saudis have a new best friend? Don't bet on it) Other nations are unlikely to match the success of the United States in tapping shale.