Planning 2026 Drilling Programs in an Uncertain Market

Whether you sit in the C-suite or work on location as a mudlogger, you felt the unsteady market through 2025. This year is nearly done, but 2026 budgets and programs need answers now.

The operators who head into 2026 with confidence will not be the ones who guessed prices correctly. They will be the ones who learned from history and chose carefully which people, tools, and data to keep. Your budget will probably be tight. So here is what matters: when you look at what you planned for 2026, do you have what you need to act fast when the market shifts upward, or will you be left in the dust?

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What Recent Cycles Taught Us

The 2020 oil price collapse became the defining event for upstream operators, with WTI briefly trading below zero in April 2020. North American rig counts dropped significantly as operators decreased production and delayed drilling programs across the Permian & Eagle Ford. This was not just a price chart, but cancelled development programs, paused exploration wells, and budget meetings where every dollar was optimized to a T.

Some operators cut deep into key infrastructure and data-packed tools when prices fell, pulling back on real-time monitoring and experienced field crews to preserve cash. When drilling started ramping in late 2021 with new development pads and infill programs, those teams scrambled to find qualified people and fill in missing subsurface data. The restart was messy because institutional memory had scattered.

Seasoned companies slowed their pace, while keeping core monitoring infrastructure and data collection alive even when rig counts were low. When operators started committing capital again to prove out new zones and drill parent-child programs, these teams moved faster because their people were still there and their subsurface understanding never went dark.

What the last few years showed:

• Cutting key infrastructure saved cash early, but made long-term restarts chaotic
• Teams that protected monitoring moved decisively when capital returned
• As the record faded, so did the confidence to commit to new drilling.

Does your 2026 plan account for what happened when others tried to restart without the right foundation?

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Planning 2026 Based on History

When 2026 programs are discussed, the conversation often divides into two views: leaders who want to limit exposure and field teams who know certain wells and pilots still need to run. The tension is real because no one wants to overcommit in an uncertain market, but sitting still means falling behind competitors who are positioning for the next cycle. What happened in the last cycle should change how teams think about what to protect and what to cut. The operators who learned are now asking different questions in their 2026 planning sessions.

Instead of cutting budget percentages across the board, they are identifying which areas have enough subsurface clarity and data density to justify committed capital right now. They are figuring out which basins or zones need more characterization work before drilling makes sense, and where keeping monitoring infrastructure alive, even at reduced scale, will pay off when conditions improve. The goal is not to guess where prices will go but to know where your subsurface understanding is strong enough to move fast when the time is right.

Questions operators are asking for 2026:

• Which areas have enough subsurface clarity to justify committed capital now?
• Which zones need more characterization before drilling programs make sense?
• Where should monitoring continue even if the overall rig count drops?

What would change about your program if you had better clarity on where your data and understanding actually are right now?

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Protecting Crews and Data

You don’t need every service running full throttle in a slower market, but some things cost too much to lose. Crews with years of experience in your basin who know the geology are not easy to replace. When someone who has logged fifty wells in the Eagle Ford walks away, they take pattern recognition that cannot be rebuilt from a manual. That person knows when the shale starts changing behavior before the log even shows it.

Once you decide which people to protect, the next question is which tools you can truly afford to lose, and in practice, that list is very short. The tools matter because the science does not wait for budget cycles. If you don’t know how porosity changes across a fault block or where fluid maturity shifts within a zone, you are guessing instead of planning from evidence. Gaps in your monitoring create holes in your subsurface story, and those gaps turn into expensive surprises when you start drilling again.

What to protect:

• Experienced people who keep knowledge accessible
• Monitoring and reporting on wells that move ahead

Conclusion: Preparing Without Predicting The Market

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No one can script 2026, but you can decide whether you will be ready or rebuilding when the market moves. The operators who protected the right people and data in recent downturns were the ones who moved fastest when conditions improved, while others spent months trying to catch up.

Give us an email at (info@mcwlinc.com) and let us know how your 2026 planning is shaping out.