Jack McClendon on Why It's So Hard to Create a New American Oil Boom

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

Business, News, News Commentary, Investing, Business News

4.5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The White House wants gasoline prices to be lower, and it wants to see American oil companies drill for more oil. But of course, these ideas are in tension. If prices are going lower, why drill more? This tension has only grown sharper since the shale busts of the mid-2010s, as American producers got burned multiple times by prioritizing production over profits. So what now? How do US producers think about the recent oil price spike? How are they thinking about the rising costs of their own production, due to higher energy, labor, and steel costs? On this episode, we speak with Jack McClendon, the founder and CEO of Siena Natural Resources, an independent oil and gas company that primary buys odd lots of wells from other companies. We talk about the long-term economics of the industry, including the central role of capital markets in determining how the industry moves. He also tells us whether the show Landman is realistic.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for listening to Odd Lots.
0:01.9	Follow the show on Amazon Music for more future episodes or just ask.
0:06.1	Alexa, play the Odd Lots podcast on Amazon Music.
0:12.2	Bloomberg Audio Studios.
0:14.7	Podcasts Radio News.
0:17.1	Music. News.
0:32.3	Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
0:33.7	I'm Joe Wisenthall.
0:34.9	And I'm Tracy Allaway.
1:14.1	Tracy, recording this April 17th, big drop in the price of oil today on the headlines, the growing optimism that I think a ceasefire will endure. Anything could happen. But at least for now, it appears the extreme left tail scenario, like $200 oil, maybe off the table. Right. So I'm looking at a chart of WTI at the moment, which might be a little hint as to our guests that we're about to introduce. But it's currently at around $83 a barrel down. The hint was that you didn't say Brent. Right. Yeah, good hint. Yeah, come on. It's a good hint. Yeah, it's a good hint. Although everyone can already see the headline on this episode if they clicked into it.
1:19.8	But anyway, it was at $112 per barrel in March or actually in early April.
1:24.6	God, time flies when you're talking energy crisis and war in the Gulf.
1:45.1	You know, even setting aside the war, however, there's a lot that I've been very curious about the future of the U.S. oil industry. You know, we were in Alaska last summer and I think one of my favorite parts of that trip was talking to that company that made the steel tubing for oil companies up on a, not the North Shore, the North Slope. Oh, yes. For the companies up there.
1:49.6	The North Shore. Yeah, the North Shore of Alaska, like it's Long Island. You know,
1:54.1	the way steel prices were going to affect the break-even costs of American oil producers, et cetera,
1:58.5	and the interaction of tariffs and higher services costs, et cetera. And we know that the U.S.
2:02.8	produces a lot of oil, and it's an exporter, but prices went up and Chris Wright, he went down to Sierra Week a few weeks ago. He said, please produce more. But as you've been right about, the rig counts have been going the other direction. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, this was also part of the Iran story, this idea that, well, if we get a huge hike in the price, if oil is going to be above $100 per barrel,
2:19.4	then maybe we'll see some sort of supply response in the U.S., right?
2:23.2	But if you look at the Baker Hughes, oil and gas rig count, it's basically been trending sideways.
2:29.8	In fact, the last available data, it fell by three.
2:33.6	And then if you go out even further, you know,
2:35.5	it's kind of been going sideways and slightly down since basically 2023. So, you know,
	...

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