Liam Denning, Columnist

OPEC Has a Second Shale Dilemma

The basin's production has rebounded from the oil crash, and it can pump cheaply.

June 19, 2018 at 12:21 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.

A lot of people have forgotten about Bakken shale. OPEC shouldn't. — A lot of people have forgotten about Bakken shale. OPEC shouldn't.
Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg

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Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources Inc., has reportedly pulled out of giving a speech at OPEC’s get-together this week. Hamm has an interesting relationship with OPEC; dismissive of it one moment and calling on it to boost oil prices the next. Plus, President Donald Trump, for whom Hamm has acted as an advisor, appears somewhat displeased with those chaps in Vienna.

Whatever the reason, he could plausibly just say he’s busy. While the oil market right now has one eye on OPEC’s intrigues and the other on the Permian basin’s blockages, production in North Dakota is quietly booming.