Monday Macro View: What is the connection between Frac Job Count and OPEC’s production? Enterprise Subscribers

A few months ago, I explored the evolving relationship between WTI crude prices and the U.S. Frac Spread Count (FSC) , highlighting how operator behavior was beginning to diverge from traditional price cues. But if FSC offered early signals of operational direction, the Frac Job Count (FJC) provides a clearer and more direct read on U.S. oil supply—the most responsive and strategically significant component of non-OPEC output. With a structurally constrained OPEC+ production and growing geopolitical risk, the trajectory of U.S. shale has become the single most important swing factor in the 2025–2026 supply balance. This article intends to look at the historic relation between oil prices and its impact on FJC and how it will unfold moving forward.

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Data shows that between mid-2020 and early 2022, there was a strong positive correlation between WTI crude oil prices and our Frac Job Count (FJC) . As WTI rose from approximately $30 per barrel in May 2020 to a high of over $120 in March 2022—a roughly 300% increase—FJC climbed from under 70 jobs per week to a sustained level above 250, peaking briefly around 280. This alignment illustrated the conventional dynamic in U.S. shale, where price-driven returns incentivized increased completions activity in short-cycle plays. The elasticity was visible not just in directional trends but in velocity: during the six-month period from October 2021 to March 2022, WTI rose by 40%, and FJC responded with a roughly 20% increase, highlighting a lag of only several weeks between price movement and field response.

However, that relationship began to diverge as early as Q3 2022. After oil stabilized in the $80–$90 per barrel range through much of late 2022 and early 2023, FJC failed to follow suit. Weekly completions activity hovered inconsistently between 220 and 260 jobs, showing far more variance than would be expected under typical price-driven behavior. Then, in the second half of 2023, while WTI remained within a relatively supportive band—FJC began a slow, persistent decline. By Q1 2024, job counts had fallen below 200 and entered a range between 160 and 190. In the same period, WTI experienced modest upswings, including a brief rally back to $80 in mid-2024. The lack of response in completions activity during these rallies suggested either a new strategic posture among operators or the onset of supply-side and operational constraints limiting responsiveness.

The decoupling appears to have become more noticeable entering 2025. WTI slipped into the low $60s by Q2, representing roughly a 15% drop from average 2024 levels, but the decline in frac activity seemed to have started earlier. After falling into the 160–190 range in late 2024, the Frac Job Count has recently ticked up, with the latest reading at 210. Still, that figure is 28 jobs below where it stood a year ago and down 7 from the prior week, suggesting that the recovery, if underway, remains tentative. Unlike in past cycles where completions activity generally moved in the same direction as prices—with some lag—2025 data so far suggests a more inconsistent connection. Once again, and as discussed in our previous articles, this could point to a shift in operator behavior, possibly influenced by capital discipline, logistical constraints, or evolving portfolio strategies, but it’s still too early to rule out a delayed response or other short-term factors at play.

While price remains a necessary precondition for economic returns, it is no longer the only trigger for completions activity it once was. The result is a more complex, less reactive, and ultimately more selective frac market—one that can only be understood through high-resolution, operator-level data and platform-based analytics that capture this new phase of maturity in the shale cycle.

What does our Efrac monitor tells us?

While national-level frac job count has clearly decoupled from oil prices, a deeper examination of operator-specific behavior reveals further meaningful variation in how individual companies have responded to commodity price shifts. Take. EOG Resources, for example. It has one of the broadest operating footprints in U.S. shale, presents a case of moderate price sensitivity with embedded volatility. From mid-2020 through early 2022, EOG’s frac job count increased sharply, generally tracking the broader recovery in WTI. However, by mid-2022, even as oil remained elevated, the company’s job count began to trend down, exhibiting periods of sharp drawdowns interspersed with brief rebounds. Notably, between Q2 2023 and Q1 2024, while WTI traded between $70 and $85, EOG’s job count showed significant month-to-month variability, oscillating between roughly 10 and 25 completions per week. Despite this instability, the post-2024 forecast band suggests EOG will attempt to normalize toward 20+ weekly jobs, implying some reactivity to pricing but within the bounds of a more cautious capital program.

EOG - Frac Job Count Projection - Primary Vision Efracs Monitor

Pioneer Natural Resources, a Permian-focused operator, demonstrates a stronger adherence to price fundamentals in its historical completions data but with increasing restraint in the most recent cycles. From 2017 through 2019, Pioneer maintained a relatively tight band of activity between 5 and 12 weekly jobs. By mid-2023, even with WTI above $75, job counts often hovered near 8 per week. As with other operators, short-lived oil price rallies in late 2023 and early 2024 failed to produce a proportionate response in frac activity. Chesapeake Energy offers a distinctly different case study due to its gas-weighted exposure. From 2017 through 2019, Chesapeake’s frac activity was relatively high, with several periods exceeding 10 jobs per week. However, from 2020 onward, the trajectory shifted downward, with extended periods of near-zero completions by 2021. Even with the resurgence in gas prices during the 2022 energy crisis, Chesapeake’s job count only partially recovered and has remained in the low single digits through most of 2023 and 2024. Forecast data through 2025 suggests a slight increase, but the base level of activity remains structurally lower than its pre-2020 range.

But the question remains - what happens next?

We are essentially looking at an overly supplied oil market for 2025 and 2026. The key factor to look for is the supply especially the production increases. It is also important to know that this time the production increase is not for the market share but to impose discipline and improve compliance within OPEC. It is, therefore, important to closely following the political developments in Kazakhstan, UAE and Iraq. KSA's budget deficit and rising indebtedness may not be concerning right now - but in the longer run, it needs to improve - which depends on the compliance between the producers.

As such there remains a chance for lower for longer oil price. Our discussion above shows, it can eventually lead to lower Frac Job Count which has stayed stable YoY despite falling rig count and Frac Spread Count. If that happens, it can lead to a fall in U.S. oil supply. With the industry providing a $40 bn surplus every year, the current administration would make sure that this doesn't happen. I assume somewhere on the continuum, Trump's and Saudi Arabia's ambitions will align: an increase in oil prices.

If WTI remains in the $55–$65 range through the second half of 2025, further softening in completions activity is likely. Not abruptly, but progressively, as internal return thresholds reset and capital is rationed. This is an interesting dynamic to watch for. Until then the Frac Job Count remains the best forward indicator of production momentum, even in a decoupled world. And with national job count trending lower, U.S. oil production growth in the second half of 2025 is set to moderate—unless pricing or policy forces a new inflection point.