I read that article and didn't come to the same conclusion.
Whilst there is a bit of the Red Queen involved, the article skips over a simple reality.
Where do the older wells come from that provide the base profits? They are the young wells which are still operating.
This is more of an investor issue than a reserves issue. Each new well is a fund of money to drill new wells as it will never be as productive as in the first year.
However once the first year is over the production does not vanish, it continues at a lower level.
So if you use the profits from the first year to fund the drilling of new wells, then pay the investors from the 1yr+ Wells, you have a sustainable model.
Even more, the supply continues to grow as the older wells do not stop producing. So, in reality, the supply continues to grow. Granted it is always on a bubble of first year drilling, but it is not fizzing out and leaving nothing behind it.
The reality is in the numbers. Over around a decade production has grown from 800,000 barrels pd to 3.5m. If this story of the Red Queen were totally fixed, that would have been impossible. It is more a case of supply growth requires continual investment to keep the bubble going. This continual investment is not something investors like. They want to buy in and milk the profits once supply starts. Should have picked a different market.
I would expect this to level out somewhere around a few hundred thousand wells. Which means we have a few more decades to go with fracking.
Sadly.