Oil-Bust Veterans Brace For Storm Unseen By Shale-Boom Neophytes

Workers connect drill bits and drill collars, used to extract natural petroleum, on Endeavor Energy Resources LP's Big Dog Drilling Rig 22 in the Permian basin outside of Midland, Texas, U.S., on Friday, Dec. 12, 2014. Of all the booming U.S. oil regions set soaring by a drilling renaissance in shale rock, the Permian and Bakken basins are among the most vulnerable to oil prices that settled at $57.81 a barrel Dec. 12. With enough crude by some counts to exceed the reserves of Saudi Arabia, theyre also the most critical to the future of the U.S. shale boom. Photographer: Brittany Sowacke/Bloomberg via Getty Images