New York Times Forecasts The 2014-16 Energy Sector Collapse

One official says the shale industry may be “set up for failure.” “It is quite likely that many of these companies will go bankrupt,” a senior adviser to the Energy Information Administration administrator predicts.

This is from the New York Times. However, it wasn’t part of The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground, Bethany McLean’s recent article promoting her upcoming book. In 2011, the NY Times ran a series of articles by Ian Urbina that was critical of many aspects of the Shale Revolution, including the shaky finances underlying its companies. In the ensuing seven years, U.S. crude oil production has doubled and we’ve moved from planning imports of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to exporting it. Behind the Veneer, Doubt on Future of Natural Gas, Urbina’s June 2011 article predicting failure, was spectacularly wrong.

Hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking”) is how shale extraction of oil and gas has revolutionized America’s energy security. It has its opponents, whose worries include water contamination and earthquakes. We are environmentalists too – it is everyone’s environment. We like the reduced CO2 emissions made possible by natural gas substituting for coal-burning power plants (see Guess Who’s Most Effective at Combating Global Warming). Robust regulation is in everyone’s interests, so that the Shale Revolution’s benefits can continue to outweigh its costs. The NY Times has a long history of criticizing fracking.

Ms. McLean’s essay was appropriately in the Op-Ed section, which acknowledges that it’s not intended as a news article. Her previous book, The Smartest Guys in the Room, recounted the collapse of Enron and was published six years after Skilling and Co’s demise. Similarly, Ms. McLean is forecasting a crisis in the energy sector after it’s already occurred. From June 2014 to January 2016, the Energy SPDR ETF (XLE) dropped 44%. An over-leveraged industry was hit by falling crude oil, which plummeted from $110 per barrel to $26. Investors complained that cash was being excessively reinvested in new wells, leaving too little available to be returned to investors via dividends or share buybacks.