U.S. shale growth may be slamming on the breaks, although analysts differ over how significant the slowdown will be. The EIA says that U.S. shale growth will slow down this year, but the agency still has growth at a rather optimistic 1.1 million barrels per day (mb/d), putting the annual 2020 average at 13.3 mb/d. The agency does see a more dramatic slowdown in 2021, with growth of just 0.4 mb/d.

The upbeat assessment is echoed by Rystad Energy, which predicts growth of 1.9 mb/d from U.S. shale, although that figure includes natural gas liquids. The firm sees Brazil and Norway adding another 1.3 mb/d, which combined risks leaving the oil market oversupplied this year. The recently announced OPEC+ cuts “might not be enough to sustain oil prices at $60 per barrel,” Rystad said in a report.

But other market watchers are warning that the shale boom might be closer to a peak than is commonly thought. Adam Waterous, an investor at Waterous Energy Fund, says that the Permian basin is either at or near a peak in production. “The North American oil market has been grossly overcapitalized, which is not sustainable,” he told Bloomberg. “It’s impossible to continue to have uneconomic production and capex.”

Even if the EIA is closer to the mark, the figures of over 1 mb/d of growth refers to an annual average. U.S. production ended the year at around 12.9 mb/d, according to the weekly data, so achieving 13.3 mb/d may be a bit less impressive than the annual changes suggest. “The momentum is declining significantly,” Commerzbank said in a note. “The decline in drilling activity and the rising costs of exploration are likely to slow the rate at which production is expanded.”