US Frack Growth Constrained In "Perfect Storm" US Frack Growth Constrained In "Perfect Storm" Last week, Halliburton Co.''s CEO Jeff Miller warned hydraulic fracturing equipment is in short supply and could hamper fracking growth. Another oil|gas executive echoed the same warning this week and said bottlenecks could persist through 2023. "Availability of frac fleets is one of main bottlenecks impeding oil and natural as production growth for the next 18 months," Robert Drummond, chief executive officer of fracking firm NexTier Oilfield Solutions, told Reuters . Besides supply chain snarls, Drummond warned that capital constraints would make adding equipment to fields challenging. He said this imbalance could take several years to correct, adding that NexTier has no plans to expand fracking capacity this year. This development is another setback for the Biden administration''s efforts to increase US oil production to ease the worst inflation in forty years ahead of the midterm elections in November. US crude production is around 11.6 million barrels per day, below the pre-pandemic 12.3 million bpd in 2019, the latest data from the Energy Information Administration show.