• The U.S. shale industry is expected to shrink by more than 2 million barrels a day following a collapse in global oil prices which has forced oil producers to shut down their fracking rigs. The U.S. oil market slumped to fresh 18-year lows below $18 a barrel at press time following one of the biggest hikes in U.S. oil stocks on record as demand for oil continues to fall and storage facilities reach their limits. The international benchmark oil price fell to $28 a barrel.
• Hi-Crush Inc. announced that in consideration of ongoing concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and uncertainty with respect to the duration of certain travel and gathering restrictions, the board of directors of the company has elected to hold the company’s 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders on Friday, May 22, 2020, in a virtual meeting format only.
• Is there hope for hydraulic fracturing? According to David Fickling, writing in the Washington Post, “There is a key difference between the shale industry and the rest of the oil and gas sector: Frackers are doing the same thing over and over again. Compared with vast conventional fields that can keep producing for decades, shale plays are smaller and run dry after three or four years, putting producers on a constant treadmill of bringing new wells onstream. Despite accounting for less than one-sixth of the world’s oil production, the U.S. is home to about a third of its drill rigs.”