Oklahoma

Oklahoma, once the poster child for US hydraulic fracturing may be on the way out.
The state has long been one of the most important oil producers in the US. Despite peaking at over 700k barrels per day in the twenties, they were still producing over four hundred thousand BBD well into the late eighties. However like a lot of the US onshore fields, they rapidly aged and production dropped below 200k BPD. When hydraulic fracturing came to be in vogue the state benefitted immensely. Production more than doubled from numbers in the year 2000. Peaking at over 450k BPD in 2015. numbers not seen since the early eighties. Things are not looking so rosy these days though. Due to its higher cost per well, rig counts have plummeted. Most of the new shale drilling has moved to more profitable fields in Texas. And what happened this weekend may be the death knell. A 5.6 magnitude earthquake. We have known for a while that fracking causes little quakes. With the number in the state increasing from around five a year to hundreds. But this last one was big. Not an in perceptible tremor, but one with some force. It will be interesting to see if this causes enough of a public panic that a fracking ban or hiatus is instituted.