Shale is a viable, sustainable business model given improvements in technology and prices
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Shale drilling has created more jobs in the oil drilling industry
The extraction of "shale" oil—known as "fracking"—has significantly increased the number of jobs available in the industry, and has been a boost to the economy.
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The Argument
Shale oil is a more than sustainable business model and here is why. In between 2010-14, technology developments and high and stable oil prices triggered a massive investment wave in the US shale sector. Investment more than quadrupled, leading to an eightfold increase in shale oil production. The production went from 0.44 (mb/d) to over 3.6 mb/d – the fastest growth in oil production in a single country since the development of Saudi Arabia’s super-giant oilfields in the 1960s.
Counter arguments
Shale oil is anything but a reliable business model. The sector as a whole generated cumulative negative free cash flow of over USD 200 billion in between 2010 and 2014. Throughout this phase, companies were forced to rely extensively on external sources of financing, predominantly debt and receipts from the sale of non-core assets, in order to finance their operations. In addition to issuing bonds, companies benefited from the reserve base lending structure, which is essentially a bank-syndicated revolving credit facility secured by the companies’ oil and gas reserves as collateral. This structure was used heavily by small and medium-sized companies with non-investment credit rating that did not have as easy access to the corporate bond market.