It's no secret that there's a horizontal oil boom happening in the United States today. What is less appreciated is how unique this boom is to the United States.

There are lots of places in the world that have oil in the ground that horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing could exploit. But more is required than just having the oil. The U.S. is unique in that it provides the perfect combination of the ingredients necessary to allow for the horizontal revolution to take off.

Let's tick the boxes on these ingredients. First, the U.S. has the oil in the ground trapped in large quantities in tight/shale oil rocks that horizontal wells and multi-stage fracturing can exploit.

Second, the U.S. already has in place a network of thousands of miles of pipelines that were originally used to develop conventional oil plays.

Third, the U.S. has the thousands of drilling rigs required that are needed to drill these unconventional fields that have low rate wells and require constant drilling.

Fourth, the U.S. has the thousands of skilled energy workers required to accomplish the massive amount of drilling, fracturing and completion work that is required.

Fifth and perhaps most importantly, the United States has a system of land ownership that financially incentivizes landowners to have their land developed.

All of those ingredients coming together have allowed the United States to move quickly and exploit the opportunity created by horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing.

Other parts of the world may have the actual oil in the ground, but the lack of the other four ingredients means that reaching that oil is many years away. The pipelines, drilling rigs and staffing will require billions of dollars of investment and years. The complications of not having a system of land ownership similar to the United States may present a permanent problem.

All that being said, there is one other country that also has all of the necessary ingredients. And that is America's neighbor to the north.

If you are interested in investing in tight/shale oil producers, you might want to take a look at some of the Canadian producers. The reason for that is that the Canadian producers offer the same opportunities as their U.S. counterparts, but many of them sell for half the valuation in the market today. One of the best examples of this is Bellatrix Exploration (NYSE: BXE).

Bellatrix offers exposure to three horizontal oil and gas plays. The gas plays are of the "liquids-rich" variety, which means that the economics of the plays are excellent, even in the current world of depressed natural gas prices.