The COVID-19 crisis has hit the U.S. shale patch hard Some producers think it will take years to recover while others think they may never recover Many oil producers are turning to federal assistance programs to stay afloat It will take years before U.S. shale production approaches pre-pandemic levels, if it ever does, according to an array of experts. Bloomberg surveyed top oil market analysts at Rystad Energy, IEA, Genscape, Enverus and IHS Markit. None of them saw U.S. oil production returning to 13 million barrels per day (mb/d) within the next few years. Rystad is the most optimistic, forecasting the U.S. closes out 2021 at 11.7 mb/d, still down 1.2 mb/d from the 12.9 mb/d peak on the eve the market downturn earlier this year. “Nothing is going to be in the money,” Bernadette Johnson, vice president of strategic analytics at Enverus, told Bloomberg. Comments from a handful […]