The Wall St. Journal ran an interview with Mark Papa, “the oilman whose role in creating this income windfall remains, for the most part, unsung. The same goes for the many other benefits of the modern American energy boom.”  

The piece states: “Mr. Papa retired last July as CEO of EOG Resources, the drilling company that he made into the largest crude-oil producer in the lower 48 over his decade and a half as chief. ‘They were among the pioneers of the unconventional oil and gas revolution,’ says the peerless energy historian Daniel Yergin —a company that advanced new frontiers in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, allowing producers to tap dense, hard-to-extract shale.”  

“’I can’t think of any other single event that has caused such a positive economic benefit to the nation as a whole as shale oil and shale gas,’ Mr. Papa says on a visit to New York this week from his home near Houston. ‘The fact that oil prices have collapsed as much as they have is directly attributable to the shale revolution.’”