The oil industry is waiting for shale to fail, but predictions of its long-term demise are diverging dramatically. Russian state-controlled Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin was eager to remind the industry’s IP Week gathering in London that it was the impact of US shale oil’s record production growth that triggered Opec’s market share strategy, ensuring that oil prices will stay lower for longer. Sechin admits that the US oil firms have adapted more flexibly than expected to lower oil prices, but he sees that reaching its limits. He cites the US EIA’s own outlook, as he tries to reassure other producers. “The production in the US cannot repeat the leap of 2012-14 under any reasonable assumptions,” he says. “The shale revolution in the US has serious restrictions on time and scope.”
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