The Pandemic Has Broken Shale and Left Oil Markets in OPEC Hands

The Pandemic Has Broken Shale and Left Oil Markets in OPEC Hands

Oil rigs stand in the Permian Basin area of Odessa, Texas.

Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg









Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg





OPEC's oil ministers have a few challenges to consider at a crucial summit next week, but for the first time in years the shale boom won't be at the top of the list.A devastating global pandemic and a reckoning with Wall Street appear to have broken the resolve of the shale wildcatters who turned the U.S. into the world's biggest oil producer. Years of breakneck growth, at the expense of