Investors pour cash into US shale despite questions on returns

Houston

FINANCIERS keep pouring cash into the shale oil sector, providing producers with a path to keep US output rising through the middle of the next decade.

The United States is on track to deliver up to 80 per cent of the world's oil-production gains through 2025, the International Energy Agency estimates, increases fuelled in part by easy access to capital. Rising US production is undermining the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) attempts to curb global supply and boost prices, forcing the oil cartel to continue restraining output through the end of 2018.