‪#‎Second‬, while shale costs have dropped and are low in the so-called "sweet spots", they will firm as drilling -- and thus, demand for drilling services -- pick back up and as drilling expands again beyond the sweet spots into the more costly areas. ‪#‎Third‬, given the massive and historic level of global underinvestment on the supply side over the past two years (for example, in 2015 recoverable resources discovered from conventional wells outside of North America was at its lowest level since 1952), shale alone isn't going to fill the gap and thus, isn't going to set the marginal cost/price of supply. Once again, it will take big projects to do that.Wohlforth is correct at the end that Alaska projects will need to compete "for every [investment] dollar, like everyone else," but that's nothing new. Alaska always has competed for global investment dollars; no investor has ever said "let's put dollars into Alaska even if we have better returns elsewhere."
(Excerpted. By B. Keithley)