huju, for several years, US fracking worked as an upper bound on oil price – the moment price goes above, I think, $60, fracking becomes profitable and US oil flows. Saudis tried to put frackers out of business by keeping prices very low and, for a time, were not successful – frackers were simply pausing operations and then resuming, while fracking costs were slowly decreasing due to tech improvements.
so, if this industry were still healthy – and apparently it is not, in large part, due to government long-term restrictions – current situation was not possible.