A lame-duck Texas regulator who proposed mandatory oil-output cuts said the effort is “dead” a day before the biggest U.S. crude-producing state was set to vote on the measure. Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton said in an interview on Bloomberg TV that the three-member agency wasn’t prepared to vote on curtailing supplies in a process known as “pro-rationing.” His comments likely mark the end of a month-and-a-half-long saga that divided the shale industry over whether regulators should adopt OPEC-style production caps amid a historic collapse in crude prices.
The unprecedented implosion of the entire oil industry has been so swift and severe that American companies have been turning off drilling rigs, demobilizing fracking crews, slashing jobs and shutting wells without the need for a government order. Fracking activity in U.S. fields has slumped 82% in the past seven weeks, while oil drilling is down 52%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“At this point we still are not ready to act, and so it’s too late, so there is no proposal to make,” Sitton, one of three Republicans on the commission, said Monday. “I think that pro-ration is now dead.”