(Oil Price) – Shale boss Bryan Sheffield, the son of Pioneer Natural Resources founder Scott Sheffield, appears to have called on America’s shale drillers to cut drilling immediately, as Brent crude flirts with prices below $60 and WTI falls to $57/barrel.
Sheffield, who controls Formentera Partners LP, told Bloomberg he is planning to delay drilling in some cases, shift focus to existing short-term drilling contracts, and return to expanding the company’s uncompleted wells once the market stabilizes, given the chaos and oil price plunge caused in part by Trump’s tariff warfare.
Sheffield reportedly told Bloomberg that the situation right now is a “blood bath”.
“The industry needs to cut immediately and hunker down to let the tariff war play out,” Sheffield was quoted as saying.
Earlier this week, during a Permian basin golf tournament, American shale drillers let their frustrations with the Trump administration be known, according to a Bloomberg report. The industry is frustrated over its high level of support for the new administration, which has since caused a severe oil price plunge despite promises of a future where shale drillers could “drill baby, drill”.
Shale drillers contributed significantly to Trump’s election campaign and were responsible essentially for “making America great again” by catapulting the country to the status of top crude producer in the world. The betrayal is now being felt as prices continue to tank.
On April 2, Trump announced a sweeping 10% tariff on all imports, effective April 5, with further tariffs targeting specific countries to take effect on April 9. This move reverberated across the global economy, leading to an unprecedented market reaction. In just two days—Thursday and Friday—U.S. stock markets suffered their largest losses ever, erasing a staggering $6.6 trillion in value before the weekend break. Bloomberg puts total global equity value losses at $10 trillion, equivalent to 10% of global GDP. For shale drillers, this translates into a dangerous loss of demand for crude oil that will not be able to support current drilling, let alone any expansion.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
