In case you didn’t catch it, investment house Credit Suisse had a wonderfully informative conference call for their clients last week on how they see the future of the shale revolution that has engulfed the oil patch in the last decade and become hyper-active especially in the last several years.
Among the bank’s conclusions: shale is a vital component of current US production which is growing at a huge clip — CS sees as much as 10 million b/d of US oil production in the next several years, up from 6.5 million b/d last year. CS also noted consistently improving well results from big plays such as the Permian Basin in West Texas and Bakken Shale in North Dakota.
Moreover, it’s not only the upstream that is exploding, but also companies that supply the technologies to eke out more oil in less time. Even ancillary services are exploding, such as technologies that can treat and dispose of water — a crucial component of well fracturing. And all this will require many billions of investment dollars into a shale economy still years away from the mature development stage.