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Interactive research reports on upstream economics, well costs, and operator strategies. Data-driven insights from 100,000+ wells across major Lower-48 basins.

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Strategy Published May 2026

How Lower 48 Independents Got Paid to Run Their Businesses, 2016–2025

A ten-year audit of how operator pay shifted from drilling more to drilling less — and what the FY2025 proxies say about whether that’s finally bending back. 6,899 classified metric rows across 151 DEF 14A filings, 17 operators. FY2025 is the first proxy cycle since 2019 where the direction wasn’t toward more discipline: Production adoption recovered 14pp, ESG shed 10+pp at the operators that had pushed it highest, and stock options came back at APA and EOG.

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