Big oil companies can be successful in shale, but success requires a focus on “relentless productivity improvement”, according to the leader of BHP Billiton’s U.S. onshore business. BHP’s U.S. shale production from its assets in the Eagle Ford, Permian Basin, Fayetteville and Haynesville comprised 42 percent of the company’s 670,000 barrel of oil equivalent per day (boepd) production, compared with 34 percent from Australia, 13 percent from the Gulf of Mexico and 11 percent from international operations. The company’s oil and gas production has doubled in the past five years due to development of its Australia and U.S. Gulf assets and acquisition of unconventional U.S. assets. But the company, which had primarily been focused on deepwater, realized a year into its operations in U.S. shale that its offshore business model would not work, Rod Skaufel, assets president of shale for BHP Billiton, told reporters at a briefing in Houston […]