In the last decade, we have witnessed seismic changes in the oil and gas industry, particularly regarding the economics of North American unconventional production. A significant portion of these advances have been attributed to technology, which many observers expect to be a continued source of deflation into the future. In this paper, we attempt to disaggregate structural improvements in well economics from cyclical ones in order to better understand whether we are in a period of accelerating productivity gains, à la Moore’s Law, or if we have reached the point of diminishing returns.

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