End of the boom in sight for U.S. shale drillers – WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fracking-oil-prices-shale-boom-11643824329

If the largest shale drillers kept their output roughly flat, as they have during the pandemic, many could continue drilling profitable wells for a decade or two, according to a Wall Street Journal review of inventory data and analyses. If they boosted production 30% a year—the pre-pandemic growth rate in the Permian Basin, the country’s biggest oil field—they would run out of prime drilling locations in just a few years.

Five of the largest shale drillers – EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG), Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN), Diamondback Energy (NASDAQ:FANG), Continental Resources (NYSE:CLR) and Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) – all have about a decade or more of profitable well sites at their current drilling pace, but would exhaust that inventory within about six years if they raised production 15%/year, according to the analysis.