From: Bloomberg
An industry built on cheap debt and new technology pushed oil production to a 40-year high.
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"An oil field worker at a fracking site near Stillwater, Oklahoma."
Photographer: J Pat Carter/Getty Images
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In January 2012, I traveled to Oklahoma City for the first time to
report on what was considered a surprising development: a U.S. oil boom.
Until then, hydraulic fracturing—aka fracking—was best known for
boosting U.S. natural gas production. It was just starting to be used to
unlock oil trapped in deep underground layers of rock like the Bakken
Shale in North Dakota, the Eagle Ford in Texas, and the Mississippi Lime
in Oklahoma.
Still folded in my notebook is a typed list given to
me that week by Gene Pflughoft, then the executive director of Central
Oklahoma Regional Development. It enumerated the benefits of tapping
shale: “Leasing the land, drilling rigs, built with hundreds of
components, thousands of employees; trucks to deliver drilling rigs;
drilling: many employees, highly skilled; training facilities, teachers,
cooks, coordinators, janitors. Restaurants full. Motels full. Welding
shops opening.”
The list now reads like a prediction of everything
that’s being lost in the bust. Oklahoma City was once the beating heart
of the shale revolution, home to pioneers such as Chesapeake Energy,
Devon Energy, and Continental Resources. It’s now an object lesson in
how quickly things fall apart when energy prices collapse. A somber
symbol of the reversal: Thousands gathered in Oklahoma City to honor
Aubrey McClendon, 56, co-founder of Chesapeake and one of the industry’s
best-known champions, who died in a car crash on March 2, the day after he was indicted on bid-rigging charges. MORE
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