Posted on 11/01/2013 7:03:46 AM PDT by thackney
Most of us are aware by now that the introduction of widespread hydraulic fracturing into the oil and gas business has resulted in a rapid growth in U.S. production. U.S. crude output is up by nearly 2.5 million barrels a day (b/d) since mid-2007 and natural gas production is up by 25 percent. The key question of course is how long production will continue to grow before it inevitably declines. Optimists maintain that we have just scratched the surface of our shale oil reserves and that production will continue increasing for years, if not decades.
Realists are not so sure, noting that not only is fracked oil very expensive, requiring circa $80 a barrel to cover the costs of extraction, but that production from fracked oil wells drops off quickly so that new wells have to be drilled constantly to maintain production. Until recently information about just how fast our fracked oil wells were depleting was rather hard to come by, so that the hype about the US becoming energy independent and a major oil exporter became conventional wisdom for most.
Last week the US’s Energy Information Administration issued the first in a new series entitled Drilling Productivity Report for key tight oil and shale gas regions. This report analyzes the six onshore oil and gas regions in the U.S. where 90 percent of the growth in oil production and nearly all of the growth in natural gas production has taken place in the last few years. The report tallies the number of drilling rigs at work in these six regions; the amount of new oil and gas they are bringing into production each month; and most importantly, the rate at which production from those wells already in production is falling.
Nearly all.. growth... from NorthDakota's Bakken... Texas’s Eagle Ford.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
Peak oil never dies.
Hu knows. I guess as long as the geological forces that created our current supply continue.
Once those forces end, all bets are off.
Since the international bankers rig the price at the New York rate, and it is so much cheaper to get than the muslim oil, even with the barriers that Baraq Hussien has erected, the shale boom will wane only when refineries are built to exploit even cheaper sources.
When liberals completely take over our government.
Quit exporting and keep it home and we would be truly energy independent. Then stop importing.
When liberals completely take over our government.
Where you been?
You have multiple delusions...
I think these stories are fabricated to make it sound like oil supplies are short to rationalize high prices like gas over $3.00 for over 1000 days.
We consume 16.5~16.9 MMBPD of products refined from crude oil.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTPUPUS2&f=M
We produce domestically ~7.5 MMBPD of crude oil.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M
You must have different math than what I use as an engineer.
My grandfather was a petroleum engineer, active in the industry from the mid 1920s right up to his death in the mid 80s. 60 some odd years.
We have known for decades the oil that was easy to pump was like (to borrow an overused metaphor) the part of an iceburg that sicks up out of the sea. There is an order of magnitude more oil to be fracked than there ever was to be brought out of the ground in gushers.
You must use far different math in your branch of engineering than that compatible with ordinary addition and multiplication.
The rest of us consider increasing production to be the solution - but you can go right ahead with your zero sum gain view of the oil industry.
Peak Oil and now Peak Gas Alarmism:
Personally I hope they soon develop the technology to safely mine the undersea methane ice fields, which are basically giant bombs waiting to go off with little or no warning, and likely with both short and long term destruction on a huge scale.
Even if they were mined just using the energy produced to mine more, it would be worth it. But since mining would likely make available a very large source of energy, we might as well take advantage of it.
When Obama outlaws it....by whatever means....
Drill. Build nuclear and natgas plants to produce electricity. Drill more. Buy from Canada.
BTW, I am an engineer as well. My statement was not based on math, but on desire and necessity.
Where do you see oil prices bottoming out? $80? $60? Are the Saudis about to crash oil prices just to make life interesting for fracking operations?
The Green River shale does not have crude oil that has been cooked out of the rock like the Bakken or Eagle Ford. It is a less thermally mature formation
It can only be produced by retorting, essentially cooking the shale to release kerogen, which is made into a synthetic crude oil for use in a refinery.
It is significantly more expensive. That $35 number turned out to be far off when Shell did their Mahogany Pilot project and turned the theories into actually flowing wells.
Mahogony Oil Shale Project
http://www.shell.us/aboutshell/projects-locations/mahogany/technology.html
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