In a presentation at the New York Stock Exchange this week, Doug Suttles, chief executive of Encana, spelt out the new reality for North American oil and gas producers. The industry had gone, he said, from “resource capture” to “value maximisation”. This is a profound change. Since the shale oil revolution began in the late 2000s, management teams have mostly focused on growth at any cost, and investors have mostly been prepared to back them. This year, however, investor sentiment has shifted. Shareholders are less dazzled by the excitement of the shale boom, and more interested in orthodox measures of success including returns on capital and cash generation. For Encana, which produces gas and oil in the US and Canada, the shift has prompted an effort to change the company’s culture. “The same conversation we have with our investors, about creating value by delivering quality corporate returns, is the conversation we’re constantly having within the company,” Mr Suttles said. The whole shale industry is being pushed in the same direction. If companies fail to improve shareholder return, says Stephen Trauber, global head of energy at Citi, “investors will start to question what management is doing”. For the past eight years, the US exploration and production industry has outspent its cash flows in drilling costs, requiring a constant inflow of debt and equity financing to keep going. But the industry has given shareholders very little in return.