US oil 'strippers' keep pumping despite slump

Houston

US "stripper well" operators, the nation's smallest oil producers seen as most likely to succumb to the crude price slump, are hanging in tough, reducing the chances of near-term production cuts needed to rebalance the domestic oil market.

The conventional wisdom is that "strippers" would be the first to fold in the face of oil's slide below US$40 given their tiny size - some may pump as little as few hundred dollars' worth of oil a day - limited access to capital and high costs compared with bigger, more efficient shale producers.