It’s been a tough year for U.S. shale. Even before the novel coronavirus pandemic pummeled oil markets, the shale revolution had been pronounced dead, with investors shying away from the Permian Basin and shale wells drying up across West Texas. A slowdown in the U.S. shale revolution was inevitable. “The nature of shale wells is that they decline in production much more rapidly than conventional wells, leading to inevitable slowdowns such as what we are currently witnessing in the once almighty Permian,” Oilprice reported in the Fall of last year. “Shale wells lose as much as 70 percent of their production in the first year, meaning that explorers have to constantly pour money into more drilling just to maintain production. By contrast, once up and running, conventional wells lose as little as 5 percent each year, providing a much more solid production outlook,” Bloomberg reported in the same month. […]