With the price of oil continuing to fall, there’s an enormous question mark hanging over the U.S. oil industry: What prices are required to break-even? There’s no simple answer, since each area—such as the Bakken play in North Dakota—has a wide range of wells, from amazing to horrible, with a corresponding range of breakeven prices. Some areas of each play are clearly better than others. “We’re already seeing an enormous amount of retraction into the safe zone ,” said Lynn Helms, North Dakota’s top oil regulator. (For a map showing this retraction—which started even before the oil price crash in the second half of 2014—see my recent Wired article “ Mapping a Fracking Boom in North Dakota .”) Until just a few months ago, there were still optimistic forecasts for the future of the Bakken. For example, a report by the investment bank Citi, “ Out of America : […]