U.S. Shale Is Far From Dead

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen a steady stream of stories announcing the death of the US shale industry. The narrative goes something like this; persistently low oil prices are squeezing producers to shut rigs and cut jobs. Closed rigs will lead to a steep drop in US production which will be highly bullish for oil prices in 2020.  To be sure, there are plenty of facts to be cited revealing stress in the US shale patch. Active US oil rigs are down from 800 in May to 696 at the end of October and some of Texas’ biggest independent producers…