Liam Denning, Columnist

Apocalypse Not-Quite-Now for Oil Producers: Liam Denning

October 12, 2015 at 4:07 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Shale oil production outside of Midland, Texas, on Dec. 12, 2014.
Photographer: Brittany Sowacke/Bloomberg

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If you watch oil markets, you have reason to feel nervous heading into Houston these days. But the most horrific thing about the city turns out to be the traffic on the Sam Houston Parkway. Expecting a scene from “The Walking Dead," you’re greeted instead with cranes over the skyline.

Is this just evidence of pure Texan grit? No. Rather, Houston is poised between the legacy of an earlier boom and the growing impact of a bust. The same can be said for the exploration and production sector that calls it home.