2018 was the year the oil and gas industry promised that its darling, the shale fracking revolution, would stop focusing on endless production and instead turn a profit for its investors. But as the year winds to a close, it’s clear that hasn’t happened. Instead, the fracking industry has helped set new records for U.S. oil production while continuing to lose huge amounts of money — and that was before the recent crash in oil prices. But plenty of people in the industry and media make it sound like a much different, and more profitable, story. Broken Promises and Record Production Going into this year, the fracking industry needed to prove it was a good investment (and not just for its CEOs, who are garnering massive paychecks ). In January, The Wall Street Journal touted the prospect of frackers finally making “real money … for the first time” this […]