It has been a miraculous decade for America’s oil and gas frackers. : It has been a miraculous decade for America’s oil and gas frackers. Thanks to their enterprising innovations in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, domestic petroleum output has tripled over the past decade to more than 12 million barrels per day, while supplies of natural gas have surged 60% to a daily 113 billion cubic feet. The biggest overall beneficiaries have been everyday Americans—who now pay $100 billion less per year for fossil fuels.