Another Sign That Shale Is Rebounding

FRACKING: Another Sign That Shale Is Rebounding.

If, as the old saying goes, two out of three ain’t bad, then five out of six has to be verging on being downright good. That’s welcome news for the embattled American shale industry, which has seen the number of active rigs currently in operation increase for five of the last six weeks. Frackers have had to endure a price collapse that at one point sent the cost of a barrel of oil below $28 per barrel, but now that prices have seemed to stabilize around $50 per barrel, all signs are pointing towards a rebound. . . .
The rig count was closely tracked these last two years as a bearish crude market slowed and eventually curbed the shale boom, but it shouldn’t be considered a perfect metric. When faced with a cash crunch, drillers will naturally shut down their least productive rigs first while leaving the real gushers in place, so the drop in rigs didn’t tightly track with a drop in overall production.
That said, it’s undoubtedly good news that the rig count is once again rising. It’s a sign that, should prices hold, the worst is over for U.S. shale. Analysts expect the rig count to continue to rise, too, topping 600 next year and averaging just shy of 1,000 in 2018. Step one for rekindling the shale revolution is drilling more wells, and five of the last six weeks we’ve seen evidence of just that.

Frackers are doing more to save western civilization than most of those charged with its defense.

24Posted at 10:30 am by Glen