I recently came across two articles that I thought to be very well written about the fate of shale drilling in the foreseeable future. It's immediate future may not seem that bright- but, maybe because in the last 15 years it has blazed very bright indeed. I have never worked in the oil patch in either boom or bust periods. Although in the late 80s, I was a salesman of some sort selling something in Williston and I remember seeing the street sign for "Million Dollar Way" and thinking Williston sure was a pretty strange place for a sign like that. But when great prosperity returned so did the spirit of Million Dollar Way. If you're looking for a quick Williston back story...click here.

I tripped across this article from Reuters and it included this quote from Nils

“It started as just a temporary downswing but it’s the downswing that never really stopped,” said oilfield services worker Nils MacArthur. He is thinking of leaving the industry after more than 20 years in oil.

“I don’t really have control over this anymore,” he said. “If this is an act of God, maybe I need to find another career because I guess God’s had enough of the oilfield.”

The crashing price of oil would have been very difficult to sustain but the addition of COVID-19 meant our consumption crashed as well.  I feel Reuters does a nice objective job of providing the facts and the not at all sugar coated story.  It's written in a way I actually found myself following along even when they got to "force majeure" which deals with being able to maintain your lease while doing nothing. There's quite a few writers on the Reuters piece and it shows- it's packed full of information.

The second article appeared on Wired and instead addresses why the world is still producing oil in the numbers that we are.  It also addresses the difficulty or reopening a shale drilling operation.  I hope you find them as interesting and informative as I did.

Being on the outside, I have to confess I've often had an "it comes and it goes" type of attitude when it comes to the oil booms. Now I feel we may need to pray for the future of the fields and pray for the thousands whose lives are being completely turned upside down

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