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Robin West, chairman and chief executive officer of PFC Energy, a global consulting firm that specializes in oil and gas, has gone as far as branding the shift as the energy equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Companies of all sizes are repositioning themselves, learning how to produce it or buying up those who know how. Investors love the possibilities. New hot spots are emerging and old ones are being revived. Centres such as Calgary are seeing an influx of foreign operators, from the Chinese to the Russians, wanting to get in on the secrets.

But as more is known about tight oil, whose track record as a mainstream movement spans barely of a couple of years, skeptics are emerging, too. They question the new resource’s staying power and whether the North American experience can be easily translated elsewhere.

It wouldn’t be the first time that aggressive forecasts turn to disappointment. Remember coalbed methane? How about Russia’s energy promise? We are still waiting for the next big thing from Canada’s East coast offshore, and energy from the Canadian Beaufort Sea remain a mirage.

So far, tight oil has added about 700,000 b/d of production in the U.S. In Canada, it’s making up for declining conventional production.

A new study by the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School reflects the bullish view. Author Leonardo Maugeri estimates tight oil fields in the U.S. could push out 3.5 million barrels a day by 2020, raising overall U.S. production to 11.6 million barrels a day, which would put it second to Saudi Arabia as a top world producer.