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(CNN) - The United States is in the midst of a great energy boom. But US oil shale oil producers cannot quickly fill the supply gap left by this weekend's attacks on Saudi Arabia.
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The kingdom, which exports more oil than any other country, has been forced to reduce its production by 5.7 million barrels per day after coordinated attacks. That is more than 5% of the global offer.
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The world has enough commercial stocks to keep the markets stocked at the moment, and countries like the United States could take advantage of their strategic reserves if Saudi production takes longer than expected to get back online.
What merchants should not tell is that the US oil shale industry comes to the rescue.
US production has more than doubled in the last decade thanks to shale. Drilling innovations have opened new fields, allowing the United States to pump more oil than any other country.
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The United States has also become a major energy exporter. US shipments exceeded 3 million barrels per day in June, briefly pushing the country ahead of Saudi Arabia to become the world's largest exporter. But the American shale industry would take months to increase its production in response to the higher prices caused by attacks against Saudi Arabia.
"There seems to be this idea in the public's mind that shale can increase supply immediately, and that is simply not the case," said Bernadette Johnson of Enverus, an energy data analysis company.
Shale producers depend on multiple individual wells, and increasing production means new platforms, termination equipment and infrastructure. That is much more difficult than pumping extra oil from a traditional crude oil field.
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In addition to that, US operators have limited capacity to increase production in the Permian basin due to infrastructure bottlenecks.
According to Johnson, several pipes and terminals are being built. But with the current infrastructure, bituminous shale producers could not get much more crude from the Permian, even if they wanted to.
"The infrastructure is simply not there yet to take it to the coast, and the coastal export terminals could not handle it either," he said, adding that there are 1,000 wells in the region that have been drilled but not yet completed.
US shale producers have also been pressured by investors to reduce spending and slow its expansion. Shale stocks have been affected this year.
The role of Saudi Arabia
The violent increase in crude oil prices on Monday reflects concern over the escalation of the armed conflict in the Middle East, but also highlights the crucial role in global markets played by traditional producers in the region.
READ: What do the attacks against Saudi Aramco mean for oil prices?
There are indications that Saudi production could be hampered for a prolonged period, and two Saudi sources familiar with the oil operations of the kingdom told CNN Business that completely restoring production "will take weeks, not days."
Most of the other major producers are already pumping at full power.
Iran has some available capacity, but US sanctions make it hard for the country's crude to reach the market. Venezuela, another potential source of additional supply, has a messy oil industry at this time.
According to the International Energy Agency, OPEC had a free capacity of 3.2 million barrels per day before the attacks. But approximately two-thirds of that allocation came from Saudi Arabia.
"The world is not even close to being able to replace more than five million [barrels per day] of exports from Saudi Arabia," said Bjørnar Tonhaugen, head of oil market research at Rystad Energy.
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"The market's reaction to the importance of Saudi Arabia, in the new era of American shale, will now be put to the test," he added.
The world will depend on commercial and national crude oil reserves, while Saudi Arabia works to restore its online supply. The Saudi government maintains important reserves, as do China and the United States.
The IEA, which monitors the supply of energy for the world's richest nations, has helped coordinate three previous releases: before the 1991 Gulf War; after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the response on behalf of the Libyan civil war.
"The global flow of crude oil will not be interrupted immediately ... however, the longer the processing facility [in Saudi Arabia] is interrupted, the greater the potential impact on actual oil flows," Tonhaugen said.
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