Letter from Houston: Fiscal discipline has positives and negatives

No rush for a production rebound makes sense. But it may impact on the long-term attractiveness of a career in oil

The Texas oil industry—and production across much of the US more broadly—has, unsurprisingly, spent a year struggling to adjust for highly uncertain demand conditions. It still also bears the psychological scars of last year’s negative April WTI price. To briefly recap, overwhelming selling demand to close out long positions from paper traders unable to take delivery of physical barrels and a lack of Cushing tank capacity forced the expiring WTI futures contract to previously unseen lows. Physically traded WTI—along with other US grades, which often trade over the counter and share a positive correlation with WTI paper—also weakened considerably. As a reaction, according to the EIA, Lower-48