Shale Oil Still Defeating Its Skeptics -- Richard Zeits -- March 8, 2018

Well done, Mr Zeits. Over at SeekingAlpha:

• macro models are finally catching up with unconventional oil realities: U.S. shales are competitive at low oil prices and volumes grew much faster in 2017 than many skeptics had anticipated
• in recognition of the operational trends, in the last three months alone, the EIA's STEO forecast for U.S. production was revised higher three times
• the production estimate for Q4 2018 was increased by a staggering 1.0 million barrels per day
• 2hile the agency's 2018 estimates for U.S. production are now not unreasonable, the 2019 projections are puzzling and face the risk of major upward revisions

With regard to the last bullet (the 2019 projections are puzzling and face the risk of major upward revisions), two comments:

• bureaucracies are by their very nature, very conservative; they would rather be wrong on the low side than the high side
• shale production is very, very sensitive to price swings and consumer demand

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