Although oil production in the Permian Basin shows all signs of slowing down in the new year , the West Texas shale revolution is not over yet. In fact, shale oil production in the United States will keep growing, albeit at a slower rate, to reach a jaw-dropping, record-breaking 14 million barrels per day in just a few years from now. In the long run, however, it is likely that production growth in the Permian will continue to decline. As Oilprice reported in September of last year, “the nature of shale wells is that they decline in production much more rapidly than conventional wells, leading to inevitable slowdowns such as what we are currently witnessing in the once almighty Permian.” Bloomberg echoes this sentiment, reporting that “shale wells lose as much as 70 percent of their production in the first year, meaning that explorers have to constantly pour money […]