Last year, U.S. crude oil production broke another record. This in itself is not exactly news. The shale oil industry has been breaking records for breakfast for years. But that was before the pandemic. After the pandemic, many pronounced the shale boom dead. Of course, those same people found out in 2023 that this wasn’t strictly true. Despite a continued focus on capital discipline and the flurry of cash they returned to shareholders, U.S. drillers managed to boost their overall output to over 13.2 million barrels daily in September.…
