When oil prices cratered from the high $80s in 2014 to below $40 in 2016, the U.S. upstream sector went looking for a rallying cry, and “$50 is the new $80” became the mantra.
Oil prices of $80 and higher had funded massive capital budgets and expansive drilling programs across the Lower 48 in the years before the downturn, but as prices drifted lower in 2016 and 2017, the viability of U.S. shale production was called into question. It was during these darkest months of the collapse that producers started talking of a new “sweet spot.”
