{"id":42366,"date":"2019-01-07T08:57:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T13:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42366"},"modified":"2019-01-07T08:57:17","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T13:57:17","slug":"new-data-suggests-shocking-shale-slowdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42366","title":{"rendered":"New Data Suggests Shocking Shale Slowdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Data Suggests Shocking Shale Slowdown<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Shale<\/picture><\/div>\n
\n

U.S. shale executives often boast of low breakeven prices, reassuring investors of their ability to operate at a high level even when oil prices fall. But new data suggests that the industry slowed dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2018 in response to the plunge in oil prices.<\/p>\n

A survey<\/a> from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas finds that shale activity slammed on the brakes in the fourth quarter. \u201cThe business activity index\u2014the survey\u2019s broadest measure of conditions facing Eleventh District energy firms\u2014remained positive, but barely so, plunging from 43.3 in the third quarter to 2.3 in the fourth,\u201d the Dallas Fed reported on January 3.<\/p>\n

The 2.3 reading is only slightly positive \u2013 zero would mean that business activity from Texas energy firms was flat compared to the prior quarter. A negative reading would mean a contraction in activity.<\/p>\n

The deceleration was true for multiple segments within oil and gas. For instance, the oil production index fell from 34.8 in the third quarter to 29.1 in the fourth. The natural gas production index to 24.8 in the fourth quarter, down from 35.5 in the prior quarter.<\/p>\n

But even as production held up, drilling activity indicated a sharper slowdown was underway. The index for utilization of equipment by oilfield services firms dropped sharply in the fourth quarter, down from 43 points in the third quarter to just 1.6 in the fourth \u2013 falling to the point where there was almost no growth at all quarter-on-quarter.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, employment has also taken a hit. The employment index fell from 31.7 to 17.5, suggesting a \u201cmoderating in both employment and work hours growth in the fourth quarter,\u201d the Dallas Fed wrote. Labor conditions in oilfield services were particularly hit hard.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Data Suggests Shocking Shale Slowdown U.S. shale executives often boast of low breakeven prices, reassuring investors of their ability to operate at a high level even when oil prices fall. But new data suggests that the industry slowed dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2018 in response to the plunge in oil prices. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[303,6010,592,23083,723,3650,846],"class_list":["post-42366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-fed","tag-nick-cunningham","tag-oil-price","tag-oil-price-com","tag-shale-oil","tag-us-federal-reserve","tag-us-shale-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42367,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42366\/revisions\/42367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}