Shale Mechanism Data: Oil-Directed Drilling, Associated Gas, and Henry Hub Dynamics (1998–2025)

This dataset supports the manuscript “Shale Mechanism: Oil Incentives, Associated Gas, and Henry Hub Dynamics.” It contains the full data architecture used to estimate a mechanism-first econometric framework linking oil incentives to natural gas prices through delayed drilling and associated gas production in oil-directed basins. The dataset includes: Raw source files from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), rig counts, and price benchmarks Processed monthly panels used for econometric estimation (1998–2025) Basin-level datasets distinguishing oil-directed and gas-directed production regions Derived variables including associated-gas aggregates, storage flows, and system-state controls Feature matrices used in the machine-learning screening stage Supporting documentation, including variable definitions and methodological structure The analytical framework tests a conditional transmission chain: oil prices → delayed drilling → oil-directed associated gas → Henry Hub The dataset enables full reproducibility of: Descriptive timing and correlation analysis Distributed-lag drilling models Basin-level associated-gas estimation Henry Hub econometric models Cointegration and restricted VECM long-run analysis Machine-learning screening and translation-back models Forecast periods present in raw EIA files are excluded from the historical identification sample.

The final econometric sample runs from January 1998 to December 2025.