Shale-Oil ‘Fracklog’ Shows US Oil Production May Be Slowing (1)

Shale explorers are drilling wells faster than they’re fracking them, a signal that US oil-production growth is slowing.

Oil companies added to the number of drilled-but-uncompleted wells, known as the fracklog, last month for the first time in more than a year, according to a report from the US Energy Information Administration on Monday. The tally is a key indicator of near-term crude flows from US shale fields because fracking is one of the final steps in the process of bringing new wells online.

Any slowdown in the US production growth would be a key consideration for OPEC and ...