AMR - Shale Oil Is Not A Ponzi Scheme: Evidence From Decline Curves
The shale revolution was launched in 1997 and became operative in full throttle since the 2000s. It has greatly improved the energy independence of the U.S. (see here); because of record-setting shale oil production, the U.S. net oil imports, a measure of the domestic oil sufficiency, declined from over 12.5 MMbo/d in 2005 to 3.7 MMbo/d as of 2017 and are projected to drop further to 2.4 MMbo/d this year and to 1.6 MMbo/d next year (Fig. 1)(see here). The rising production of cheap shale gas and the resultant coal-to-gas conversion did the