I'm no expert in gas drilling.

The bigger picture I see here is that new technology has increased the available reserves and maximum drilling rate, but at lower EROEI, which translates into a sharply higher cost for the marginal BTU.

This has coincided with the collapse in demand we have seen from the wider economy.

So we have a classic imbalance between demand , supply and price, which all other things being equal, will cause price/production swings until the two are in balance again.

Of course, all other things are not equal. We are facing sharply more expensive oil at the same time, and the supply of oil is not going to significantly increase (or do anything other than decline) regardless of price.

This must mean that the US economy has to adapt to more expensive oil and (in the medium term) gas at the same time. As these two together represent more than half the primary energy supply in the US, this can only mean a contraction in the economy until it becomes sharply more energy efficient or other energy sources can be expanded to make up the difference (or a bit of both). Neither of these are likely in the short term.

The real question is - what price for energy can the US economy support? If the answer is 'less than the cost of drilling unconventional gas in large quantities' then the drill rigs will stay idle.