"The balance sheets of these shale-only producers have to be repaired for them to get back to drilling… That’s going to curb any recovery," John Hess, the CEO of the Hess Corporation integrated oil company said, as quoted by the journal.
Top US shale oil producers, which have been the sole driving force behind the United States' doubled output between 2009 and 2015, have reportedly announced their intention to cut production in 2016. Overall US oil production has thus been in decline, falling from mid-January's record level of 9.235 million barrels per day to 9.078 million barrels per day by early March, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
"At $40, I doubt we’re going to see a lot of acceleration," the energy company Oasis Petroleum's president, Taylor Reid, was cited by the WSJ as saying.
Global oil prices plunged from $115 to less than $30 per barrel between June 2014 and January 2016, hitting their lowest levels since 2003 amid an ongoing glut in global oil supply. The prices have since recovered to around $40 per barrel for the Brent crude benchmark. Most estimates of the shale oil break-even price range between $30 and $50 per barrel.
