The oil industry is “running to stay in place” because the accelerated decline rates in existing producing fields require significant investment to compensate for production losses – almost 90% of recent upstream investment is therefore not spent on expansion, but solely on maintaining production. This trend is particularly evident in the aging process of US shale oil production, whose steeper declines rates require faster exploration and development of new reserves just to maintain production levels. In this context, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that even moderate production growth is only possible with permanently high investments, while a significant decline in spending would inevitably lead to falling production.