United States hydraulic fracturing’s short-cycle revolution and the global oil industry’s uncertain future

The global oil industry has entered into a period of debilitating uncertainty. Two forces – renewable energy and price volatility call question the profitability investing in massive, decades-long conventional projects which form backbone production. Facing volatile, unknown future, financiers are retracting from long-term projects. United States (US) hydraulic fracturing offered partial solution. unique material properties give it—relative to production—a small investment scope with short cycle This flexible production process helped sections avoid commodity’s uncertain outlook by narrowly focusing on near term. However, fracturing, while offering different temporal financial scale investment, is often more expensive per barrel. Confronted COVID-19 disruptions, massive debt, public contestation, some predict end fracking, as least profitable, most indebted players go under. paper hypothesizes that intensifying uncertainty over future above all transition will, however, ironically further stimulate this destructive extraction.