The Financial Times has reported on a rise in oil production in the US as the price of oil has risen in recent weeks. Output hit a low of 9.7 million barrels/day in the second week of June, but an additional 1.2 million b/d has been added since then, with some wells being restored and others that were unfinished being completed. It is thought that output will now stabilize at around 11 million b/d for the rest of the year, still well below the 13 million b/d that the country was producing before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fracking crews have seen a slight uptick in work since a low in June, with around 62 operating in late July, as opposed to 45 in May, but the current figure is still far below the 300 plus that were working in February. At this stage, around half a million additional barrels of oil per day are expected to be added to production in 2021, reflective of a slow and fragile recovery for the sector in the short term. The huge fall in crew operations and general malaise in the industry is hitting oil services companies hard, with Schlumberger announcing it is to make 21,000 of its workforce (around one fifth of its total staff) redundant.