Yes, it did grow very nicely early in the century, but I'd suggest this was simply new plays and better utilization of fracking+horizontal drilling being deployed. After that, if you graph price/rig count you'll see it follows price pretty clearly. That steady price rise in crude also suggests that this refinement of the process had no impact on price (it should lower it, right?). The rig count stayed high all he time crude was over $95.
Overall therefore, I'd argue that the fracking/horizontal implementation was NOT a productivity enhancement, it meant spending more effort/money to get the same output (regardless of the fact that the output would have been impossible without the tech). Getting more widgets/dollar of cost is productivity growth, that is the opposite of what the oil patch has been doing.
if you graph price/rig count you'll see it follows price pretty clearly. No doubt that the higher the price of oil, the more folks invest money trying to drill for it. More rigs always get put in service when prices stay high for years.
better utilization of fracking+horizontal drilling being deployed.
That would explain a decline in rigs for the same oil price, not an increase.
I'd argue that the fracking/horizontal implementation was NOT a productivity enhancement,
Bad argument. Productivity per rig continued to increase in this time period.
Drilling Productivity Report, December 2014
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/dpr-full.pdf
None of that supports any claim that hydraulic fracturing needs $100 to be profitable.