In the second quarter, shale companies signaled their intention to lift capex. Part of the reason is that costs are on the rise, so some drillers have to spend more to produce the same amount of oil and gas. That was an unexpected development, and one that shareholders are not happy about. A survey of 33 shale companies by Rystad Energy found that while the group revised up spending by about 8 percent, they only increased their expected production levels for this year by 1.4 percent. “This disconnect might suggest that the shale industry requires more capital than before to achieve healthy production growth,” Rystad said in a new report . There are some signs that the Permian, for instance, is running into some productivity problems , raising the possibility that the highly touted “efficiency gains” over the past few years are reaching their limit. On the other hand, […]