I have written on shale production in the U.S. a number of times over the past couple of years for OilPrice. My expectation that shale production would fall sharply to ~5-6 mm BOEPD by the end of 2020, has not been borne out. My view was that a lack of drilling/completion activity due to adverse price conditions would cause production to fall sharply. Historical annual decline rates for shale wells can be as high as 60% in the first year. In this article I discuss some of the reasons I feel this has occurred and what it may portend for oil supplies and prices going forward. Price and supply movements in commodities and oil in particular often make fools out of forecasters, myself included. The thesis I formed last summer as drilling activity plunged has largely held true, with one notable exception-U.S. shale production. Prices have climbed as storage […]