“How much more productive can these new wells get?” I asked my host who had kindly invited me on a field trip to some of western Canada’s most prolific oil fields. Looking down the aisle of bobbing pump jacks, seven in a row on one side of the immaculate gravel pad, the veteran oil executive replied, “We can get up to 1,000 barrels a day out of some of the new ones, but that’s not a limit; we’re improving the economics and productivity with each new well.” Impressive I thought, subconsciously nodding my head in sync with the leading pump jack. “Back when I was in field exploration,” I said sounding like a grey-haired guy, “we used to high-five if a new well put out 100 barrels a day.” The stats certainly show that the industry’s ability to pull oil out of the ground from parts of North America […]