Horizontal Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing - Why Didn't They Work?

The oil industry knew all about horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for decades before they were commercialized at scale. The reason they went unused is simply that they were expensive, and there was no economic justification for using them. In late 2014, Saudi Arabia changed its competitive strategy and allowed oil prices to crash all the way down to $27 a barrel by early 2015. By 2017, US production had eclipsed its prior record level from the early 1970s - something most experts thought impossible.