Picture is as murky as a barrel of oil, with US companies in 2026 expecting their first production drop in four years
US shale-oil producers were already contending with oil prices at four-year lows. News that they may soon face a significant competitor in their back yard likely wasn’t how frackers wanted to greet 2026.
The US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolaá Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, hit the share prices of independent shale-oil producers, such as Diamondback Energy and Devon Energy, last week.
Over the last 20 years, the US fracking industry has built itself into the main driver of domestic oil production: it accounted for 64% of total US crude oil production in 2023. With average production levels of 13.6m barrels a day (BPD), the US is the world’s largest crude-oil producer.
I suspect there's probably an "oil glut" (i.e. lots of oil being thrown on the market) right now, but it's not because of Venezuela (that will take years to build extraction posts) but instead because right now, every oil-producing country tries to sell as much as possible before renewable energy will inevitably drop the demand for fossil fuels to near zero around 2040.
In 2024, 5% of our electric power came from solar. It grows by 30% annually, that means it doubles in 3 years and grows to approx. 50% by 2035.