Oil Bosses Take Different Sides of Shale Boom-and-Bust Outlook

(Bloomberg) -- Two top oil company executives are taking contrasting views on how fracking is changing the industry’s life cycle.

Crude production is outgrowing the boom-and-bust cycles of the past as the cost of getting a barrel out of the ground falls to new lows, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. Chief Executive Officer Tim Dove said. But ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said that the ups and downs are getting steeper and faster, presenting a new challenge for explorers.

“When we embark upon this new future of shale drilling,” the market is “not probably going to be in as much of a boom and bust mentality,” Dove said during an interview on Bloomberg TV Tuesday. “We’ll be in more of a manufacturing mode.”

But Lance took a different view earlier at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in Houston.

“Peak to peak and trough to trough,” the boom-and-bust cycles are “getting closer together,” Lance said during a Q&A with oil historian Daniel Yergin. The executive said that makes it more difficult for companies to manage risk and make drilling decisions.

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