This Chart Proves That Low Oil Prices Can’t Stop US Shale Oil Surge
June 23, 2017
•2 min read
Image via Gretarsson/Wikimedia
The US has benefited from the shale revolution more than any other country. Not only does it have vast shale formations, most of its wells are located within its territory. That means producers don’t have to compete for jurisdiction or share their profits.
Shale oil is enmeshed in shale rock, which is located thousands of feet beneath the Earth’s surface and is generally less permeable than other rock types—making deposits more difficult to access.
Oil deposits found in shale rock formations are mainly extracted by way of hydraulic fracturing, also know as fracking. In the 1990s, producers began to combine fracking with a separate process known as horizontal drilling.
The supply of US shale gas, and later shale oil, has increased ever since.
However, in Russia and Saudi Arabia, it’s still much cheaper to drill for conventional oil than for shale oil. Each can produce a barrel for about $10–$15.
With oil priced at $50, the government in Riyadh will make more money off a single barrel than a shale oil driller will for the foreseeable future.
This explains why, even when prices fell so dramatically from 2014 to 2016, OPEC could afford to maintain high levels of production. Its members (and Russia) thought that if they kept prices low and captured market share, they could outlast US shale producers who could, in theory, no longer afford to operate.
It was a sensible strategy at the time. The problem is it didn’t work. OPEC didn’t expect shale oil drillers to lower their costs as much as they did, nor did it anticipate how quickly they could complete unfinished projects.
Plus, a shale oil driller in the United States doesn’t need to be more profitable than Saudi Arabia to drill new wells; the driller just needs to fetch a sufficient return on invested capital.
When prices are low, drillers simply forgo exploration and concentrate on the completed wells that produce enough oil to justify their existence.
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George Friedman
George’s unmatched analysis in geopolitics has led him to regularly brief military organizations and consult for Fortune 100 executives. Seeing the need to bring geopolitical forecasting to a wider audience, George has authored several New York Times bestsellers, including The Next 100 Years. He also founded the geopolitical intelligence consulting firm Stratfor in 1996 and is now the founder and chairman of the geopolitical forecasting service, Geopolitical Futures.
Born in Hungary in 1949 to Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust and horrors of WWII, George Friedman witnessed a devastated Europe. In an effort to escape communism, his family fled to a refugee camp in Austria before immigrating to the United States. Determined to discover those principles of logic that govern the world, George received his PhD in government from Cornell University, granting him access to some of the most brilliant thinkers in the field… in the US and across the globe.
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