When I say, repeatedly, that the U.S. exports oil and natural gas to foreign countries "below costs" it is because I include debt that was never paid by the sector, lost, and debt that is still outstanding. I am old school oil man that believes free cash flow is not free as long as the operator is still in debt and does not have all its plugging, abandonment and decommissioning costs set aside. When these liabilities are completely paid, then U.S. shale will be profitable. Not until then.

Today the shale oil sector in the Permian Basin is still pushing $200B of unpaid long-term debt. I don't have a clue what it's going to cost to plug all those HZ wells and clean that infrastructure up someday but it's a liability that MUST be paid, along with long term debt.

The cost then of the shale phenomena, unpaid and/or unlikely to ever be entirely paid, is a little south of $600 billion.

I used to think that was a lot of money to have lost, or still owe, to be bragging about how much (affordable) oil is still in America, "more than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined," last I heard. "More than we can ever use," I've also been told.

Nah. Whatever the shale industry lost or might lose in the U.S going forward would barely pay the interest on the nation's long-term debt in one year. Shale debt is chump change.