JPM E&P Shale Well Watcher: U.S. Shale Well Productivity Tracker: Engineers > Mother Nature; 2026 Well Productivity Trending Higher in the Delaware, DJ, and Midland Basins

Research evidence excerpt

JPM E&P Shale Well Watcher: U.S. Shale Well Productivity Tracker: Engineers > Mother Nature; 2026 Well Productivity Trending Higher in the Delaware, DJ, and Midland Basins

J P M O R G A N North America Equity Research

03 August 2026

JPM E&P Shale Well Watcher

U.S. Shale Well Productivity Tracker: Engineers >

Mother Nature; 2026 Well Productivity Trending Higher

in the Delaware, DJ, and Midland Basins

JPM View: In this week’s Well Watcher, we highlight key takeaways from our U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production

ACShale Well Productivity Tracker (see link) as shale well productivity remains one of Arun Jayaram

the key drivers of E&P capital efficiency. We continue to frame the U.S. shale (1-212) 622-8541

environment as one that is pitting the engineers vs. Mother Nature, as D&C efficiency arun.jayaram@jpmchase.com

plus emerging productivity tech (lightweight proppant, surfactants) is helping offset Pankaj Bhatter, CFA

more mature rock, and we appear to be seeing some of those tailwinds in the data. In (1-212) 622-3795

our quarterly update, we note that well productivity has increased in 3 of the 6 major pankaj.bhatter@jpmchase.com

oil basins based on early 2026 3-month oil cumes, with the Delaware Basin (+17%), Jack Jerusalmi

DJ Basin (+6%), and Midland Basin (+1%) all showing YoY gains. One of the key (1-212) 622-6552

jack.jerusalmi@jpmorgan.com

takeaways is that early 2026 data shows declines in productivity in the Anadarko J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

Basin (-13%), Bakken (-10%), and Eagle Ford (-4%), though we caution that the

overall 2026 data set is still relatively limited.

At the operator level, we’ve seen a number of declines across the Permian, though we

caution that some of these companies have a limited number of wells with 3+ months

of production data.