In mid-January, Adam Waterous, who operates the private equity firm Waterous Energy Fund, made a prediction about the crown jewel of the U.S. shale oil industry, the Permian shale play that straddles Texas and New Mexico. “We think we are at or near peak Permian,” Waterous told Bloomberg . “The North American oil market has been grossly overcapitalized, which is not sustainable.” Bloomberg reporter Simon Casey goes on to qualify that “[p]redicting peak Permian output for 2020 isn’t a mainstream view.” However, evidence is piling up that the U.S. shale industry may indeed be close to peaking as it runs out of the two things required to continue increasing oil production: money and what’s known as “tier one acreage.” Tier one acreage is the term for the areas that produce the most oil per well. It’s also known as “sweet spots,” “core acreage,” or “good rock.” The idea of […]