More Uncompleted Wells Is Latest Sign of US Shale Slowdown

(Bloomberg) -- US oil and gas companies fracked fewer wells than they drilled for the second consecutive month, the latest sign of a slowdown in American shale despite relatively high prices and concerns about a global energy crunch.

The number of drilled but uncompleted oil and gas wells, also known as DUCs, rose by 22 from the prior month to 4,443 in November, the US Energy Information Administration said Monday. That comes after a 27-month-long streak of declines in DUC count, the longest according to EIA records dating back to the early days of shale.

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Bringing a new shale well online involves two basic steps: drilling, then hydraulic fracturing, requiring separate crews who sometimes work months apart. The DUC count shows whether the shale sector is building up a cushion of wells — a so-called fracklog — that’s ready to be fracked, or whether it’s eating into that inventory. The count started to shrink at the height of the pandemic, when producers idled rigs and cut costs to the bone in the face of plunging oil prices.

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