After a $70 billion merger, a dismal year for acquisitions and divestitures could finally get going—but doubters are going to doubt.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (NYSE: RDS-A) “splashy agreement” with global oil and gas producer and LNG trader BG Group Plc (NYSE: BG) prompts questions about U.S. corporate upstream deals, said Jonathan D. Wolff, analyst, Jefferies LLC. Some analysts said the deal won’t affect U.S. E&P deal flow much if at all.

Others see it as a potential trigger event for a wave of consolidation because no one wants to lose ground to competitors.

Wolff’s not buying the notion and he doesn’t expect E&Ps to start buying each other.

Wolff said the Shell/BG deal is similar to Halliburton’s (NYSE: HAL) purchase of Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI). The impetus for the mergers is on synergies and cost-cutting potential for large, diversified companies.

Shell’s deal mightily expands its global LNG trading portfolio and gives it access to a potential 3.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent offshore Brazil. Some assets will have consolidation appeal at the right price for companies such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) and Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD), Wolff said.

Shell, BG group, U.S. E&P, shale oil, shale gas, M&A, A&D, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Anadarko, Pioneer Resources, QEP, Concho, WPX, Diamondback, Chesapeake “Corporate M&A for U.S. E&Ps will be more difficult due to wide bid/offers on buyer/seller oil price expectations, major tax considerations and less cost-cutting potential in E&Ps, as most costs are outsourced,” Wolff said.

Pearce Hammond, co-head of E&P research, Simmons & Co. International, said that while a wave of deals is possible, it’s unlikely.

But by and large, Hammond said the bid-ask spread between buyers and sellers is wide. Domestic E&P equities are discounting at least $70 per barrel (bbl) WTI, which makes valuation more challenging, especially if a buyer were to use the price deck that Shell employed for BG. Shell’s deal assumes Brent prices of $67/bbl in 2016, $75/bbl in 2017 and $90/bbl through 2020.

Companies also aren’t hurting enough, though.

“The level of distress necessary to incentivize M&A has been lessened this year due to an equity infusion and bank leniency on borrowing base redeterminations,” Hammond said.

Mergers don’t necessarily translate for U.S. E&P's with small headcount per revenue dollar or the need to highgrade drilling inventory rather add longevity to total inventory.

For buyers that do pounce on opportunities, “the predators should be producers with good balance sheets and the prey should be those with less pristine balance sheets.”

Still, some E&Ps appear eager to do deals, including QEP Resources Inc. (NYSE: QEP) and WPX Energy Inc. (NYSE: WPX), Hammond said. Others, such as Concho Resources Inc. (NYSE: CXO) have their gun loaded but are more likely to make a bolt-on acquisition. Diamondback Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: FANG) seems eager to get bigger in the Permian. And Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) may be interested in an acquisition to better balance its portfolio.

Other industry observers believe the Shell deal could be a turning point for 2015.

Christian Stadler, a strategic management professor at Warwick Business School in the U.K. said the deal is reminiscent of the megamergers of the 1990s.

“Quite a few oil companies are under cost pressure with no sense of the oil price recovering,” he said. “Companies had got used to $100 a barrel, and many need $40 to $60 to break even so we could see more of these deals.”

Dennis Cassidy, head of the oil and gas practice at AlixPartners, a global business advisory firm, said the Shell merger should pull forward deal activity by several months from the end of the year when many believe activity would increase.

“Everyone was thinking it was going to take a while for new normal to set in around what price decks are, in terms of what to expect on the forward look on commodity prices,” he said.

That clarity would have brought a comfort level to making transactions, he said. Shell’s deal alters that.

“What this signals is that these two companies have gotten there faster, which will then expedite or accelerate a bunch of pent up deal flow,” he said, “Because nobody wants to be left out on the good assets.”

In a broader sense, Cassidy marvels at how the industry has restructured and reset spending since oil began its tumble last year.

“Restructuring, capex, M&A, it’s all happening at lightning speed,” he said.