Shale Drillers Pump More Oil From Each Well as Rigs Mean Less
- Companies are drilling wells faster and in better oil patches
- New oil output is down 39%, compared with rigs dropping 59%
Workers prepare drilling pipe on a deep sea crude oil platform in the waters off Veracruz, Mexico.
Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Shale producers in the U.S. have learned to do more with less.
Last year’s price crash forced drillers to cut budgets, reducing the number of rigs in U.S. oil fields by 59 percent from the peak. Crude production, though, has fallen only about 5 percent.