The one constant in the oil and gas industry is the boom-bust cycle. Prices spike, drillers rush in. Prices drop and the drilling ends.

But what if the boom doesn’t come back?

Some in the industry say that’s the unique situation facing Colorado’s Western Slope, a previous hot bed of drilling development that’s struggled in a prolonged price downturn. Drillers here have become a victim of their own successes.

Boom-bust cycles are such a part of the industry’s DNA that some guys can measure their career by them. Don Simpson, a senior vice president of Ursa Operating Company, is one of those longtime oil men. Sometimes a bust lasts just a year or sometimes “they last a lot longer,” he says.

Read the rest of the story on Colorado Public Radio website.