The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has adopted a market-based pricing strategy that it hoped would shake out high cost producers. One such high cost producer is the U.S. shale industry, which dramatically boosted world production in recent years. While U.S. rigs are now down more than 50 percent from last year, analysts and traders have speculated that the rigs coming off line are those that were already declining in production and that the robust rigs are still operating. In addition, many investors believed that lower prices would squeeze U.S. shale producers to produce less, but the data show otherwise. Analysts say the high level of production shows that the U.S. industry continues to be resilient and continues to find efficiencies in the system. “As the […]