We’re now one year into the oil bust. For a time there was hope that this downturn would be kind of like 2009, where prices fell sharply in the wake of global economic collapse, but shot back up just as quickly – leaving little collateral damage behind. It’s clear now that’s not going to happen. The 2009 collapse was driven by a sudden drying up of demand. This time around there’s just too much supply — especially in the United States. And it’s simply not going away. According to the Energy Information Administration, domestic crude oil output peaked in April at 9.6 million barrels per day. Since then it has slipped to 9.2 million bpd, about where it was a year ago, when the bust began.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. In every commodity, everywhere, when prices plunge the high-cost producers (U.S. tight oil and Canadian oil sands) get washed out and the low-cost producers (Saudi, Iran, Iraq) consolidate market share. That’s what the Saudis were hoping for when last November they decided to hold oil output steady. And yet, America’s high-cost oil producers are not going off quietly to meet their maker. Rather they are kicking and screaming, moving quickly to slash costs, cut rigs, cut heads (200,000 in layoffs so far), and demanding discounts from suppliers. They are getting leaner, smarter, better.

“Every company is in the process of restructuring,” says Ken Hersh, CEO of private equity giant NGP Energy Capital Management. Some might end up in bankruptcy court, but for the vast majority it’ll be a multi-year slog through the trenches before emerging on the other side, battered but stronger. “It’s a tug of war between American ingenuity and the quality of the rocks. Ingenuity is winning. It’s the great thing about our system, and it means that you can make money at $60 oil.”

Read more: A Year Into The Bust, American Oilfield Ingenuity Is Still Thriving