Analysts examining the effect of the oil price’s precipitous decline on companies should spare a thought for stripper well operators, the mom-and-pop businesses that coax the last trickles of crude from long-ago drilled holes.
Although tiny in isolation — the average stripper well yields less than 2 b/d — there are more than 400,000 such wells in the US supplying about 11 per cent of US oil production. They produced 700,000 barrels per day in 2012, the latest year for which data are available — as much as the Opec member Qatar, according to data from the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission.
Now, with the price of US crude below $60 per barrel — down 46 per cent from levels six months ago — some operators plan to idle their stripper wells. Widespread closures could help balance the oversupplied global oil market and stabilise prices.