How markets are triumphing over the Saudis

While they had previously been successful at quashing upstarts by flooding the marketing with cheap oil, that strategy hasn't worked this time for the Saudis (WSJ):

What the Saudis and the naysayers closer to home seem to have forgotten is that the free market is the greatest incubator of technological innovation. Energy producers in this country have gauged the challenges of lower prices, are working to tackle them, and it’s paying off.

The technology behind shale production is advancing rapidly, and its costs are falling. Today the industry can tap multiple separate oil pools from a single vertical hole, drilling horizontally through miles of rock with computer-guided, steerable drill bits. Some of these “octopus” wells can feature as many as 18 horizontal shafts.

Articles about falling rig counts don’t take this into account. We’re seeing additional innovations such as the use of recycled “fracking” water, carbon dioxide and other substances to break formations, reducing the use of precious fresh water in drilling.

An extended period of below-$40 prices—if that’s what’s ahead—will have an effect on the industry and many families will have to endure consolidation and layoffs. Weaker and overleveraged players will go out of business. The oil industry as we knew it before prices dropped may never be the same.

But if history is any guide, oil and gas prices won’t remain low forever. And the technology, the talent and the infrastructure associated with America’s energy renaissance aren’t going away. They’re new facts in the global landscape. When prices rise, American capital will flow back to the oil patch and production will ramp up again.