A report issued this week by analytics firm Rystad Energy finds that North American tight oil/shale plays now ranks as the 2nd-least expensive source of crude oil on the planet. That finding represents a dramatic turnaround in just a few short years. As Rystad notes in its press release, “In 2015, North American shale ranked as the second most expensive resource according to Rystad Energy’s global liquids cost curve, with an average breakeven price of $68 per barrel.”
This stunning reduction in finding costs is a credit to both the industry’s internal efforts to bring efficiencies into their operations and the development and deployment of a broad array of advancing technologies.
This is an industry run by problem-solvers. Four years ago, it had a real problem, and four years later it has made great strides towards solving it.
