Cartoon Of the Week

Here's the deal; the drill baby, drill dung heap didn't work. Rig counts are down, completions are down and production is headed down, not up. 1Q25 earnings were down. Whatever plan the administration had to make the shale sector kick it up a notch was dumb.

So, Plan B was tariffs, trade wars and coercing OPEC into increasing production to drive the price down $20 a barrel, likely going down by $30 bucks a barrel to $50. That will destroy LOTS of jobs and make it 100% impossible for the shale sector to return dividends to investors, pay its $178 B of long-term debt and rack back enough money to plug and abandoned 123,000 shale oil wells and decommission its infrastructure, I guess another $35 billion. U.S. production will eventually drop, prices will go up, not down, and a financially frail shale sector loses shareholders and other people's money.

So far, not so good.

Think the U.S. shale phenomena is good for America's long term energy security? Love its dividends, don't mind its debt? Believe "hope" for higher oil is prices is a sound tactic?

Estimated annual interest paid on current long-term debt would pay for an additional 1,000 HZ wells to be drilled each year and increase, and maintain, U.S. crude oil and condensate 768,0000 BOPD.