Posted on 09/24/2014 5:01:46 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Despite turning the U.S. into the world's largest producer of natural gas and driving a 3 million barrel per day surge in U.S. oil production in just the last three years, the shale revolution still has its doubters. They couldn't be more wrong.
The Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalization recently dismissed shale fracking as a "Ponzi scheme" and "this decade's version of the dot-com bubble" that's about to burst. But time and again over decades, the naysayers and "peak oil" advocates have grossly underestimated the energy industry's ability to innovate and beat production forecasts. Today's shale pessimists continue to do so.
Shale pessimism is constructed on the theory that U.S. development has so far largely centered on sweet spots the most resource-rich areas of geologic formations. As drilling continues and moves further from these sweet spots, productivity of newly drilled wells will allegedly fall. Shale development is already a complex and highly capital-intensive process. The profit margins between an economic well and an uncompetitive well can be razor-thin. In theory, less productive wells, drilled in the margins of shale plays, will quickly become uneconomic and put producers in the red.
Shale pessimists also point to the sharp decline curves of shale wells to support their bubble theory. While newly drilled and producing wells may be highly productive initially, their output falls sharply over time nearly 50% a year. Continuing to increase overall production, much less just maintain it, supposedly takes constant drilling.
Theory Vs. Data
The sharp decline curves and the movement of drilling into the margins of shale plays seem like a recipe for production to peak and then fall, according to the "peak oil" advocates....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
That’s if the Russians aren’t right, and I’m starting to think they might be.
The inconvenient truth is most Democrat politicians are having a daily multiple orgasm over the mere thought of the additional revenue streams.
Another inconvenient fact is that according to he USGS, the untapped Green River Formations weigh in at about 3 Trillion barrels of oil with 1 Trillion exploitable with todays technology.
Indeed the shale oil “revolution” has opened a lot of opportunities for the U.S. Ridding ourselves of obumdo would open to door to more gas and oil than any of could ever use. Odumbo’s allegiance is NOT to the U.S. but to his benefactors in the middle east.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.