August 2012
North American Outlook
U.S. drilling hits a plateau
Weakness in crude oil prices, coupled with uncertainty about the presidential election and future economic performance, has caused U.S. drilling to go sideways. A trend was already present at the beginning of this year, whereby operators were steering large amounts of capital spending away from dry gas drilling. This factor has now been exacerbated by such a shift toward oil and NGL-directed drilling, that it has boosted liquids production fast enough to depress liquids prices in the short term,
