Posted on 07/02/2013 1:31:52 PM PDT by ckilmer
July 02, 2013 Harvard has a new US Shale Oil Study forecasts US as world number one oil producer with 16 million barrels per day of all liquid oil in 2017 Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook In a paper titled “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” [64 pages] Maugeri wrote that the unique characteristics of shale oil production are ideal for the United States -- and unlikely to be mirrored elsewhere in the world. These factors include the availability of drilling rigs, and the entrepreneurial nature of the American exploration and production industry, both critical for the thousands of wells required for shale oil exploitation.
Maugeri, author of a 2012 report forecasting rapid growth of global oil production and belying the notion that oil output has “peaked,” argues in his new paper that the boom in U.S. shale oil production is central to the overall U.S. oil surge. If oil prices remain close to today’s levels, total U.S. production of all forms of oil [all liquids includes natural gas liquids and ethanol] could grow from 11.3 million barrels per day to 16 million barrels per day by 2017.
The dramatic surge in U.S. shale oil production could more than triple the current American output of shale oil to five million barrels a day by 2017, which would likely make the United States the No. 1 oil producer in the world, according to the new study by researcher Maugeri at Harvard Kennedy School.
NOTE - The United States is already the world's number one oil producer in terms of all liquid oil production.
The shale oil counts as crude oil so 10.4 million bpd would put the US as the number one crude oil producer in the world in 2017 unless there is increased production from Russia and/or Saudi Arabia. Updated EIA oil production comparison between USA, Russia and Saudi Arabia is here.
He used a possible best-case scenario encompassing a West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price of $85 per barrel in 2013, $80 per barrel in 2014, $75 in 2016, and $65 long term, along with an 8 percent per-well cost reduction per year through 2017 (that is consistent with what is already happening across the shale industry), and the progressive easing of the transportation problems that now imply significant price discounts for most of U.S. shale crude oils. My projection of the total U.S. oil potential also assumes that, from 2013 to 2017, more than 6,000 new oil producing wells are brought online annually in the shale/tight oil arena alone
Maugeri said the number of American shale oil wells in North Dakota and Texas could soar from the current 10,000 to more than 100,000 working wells by 2030. He said steady improvements in technology and cost would continue to drive industry growth in the shale oil fields in the Dakotas and Texas.
The United States holds more than 60 percent of global drilling rigs, and 95 percent of American rigs can perform horizontal drilling, which along with hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), is necessary to exploit shale oil.
Some Details
He estimates of recoverable oil reserves from Bakken-Three Forks is about 45 billion barrels.
Given the oil price scenario he used for this study, he assumed that if the number of Bakken’s new producing wells increases progressively by 12–20 percent a year from 2013 on, the play may reach a crude oil production of 1.8 mbd by 2017.
Given the oil price scenario he used for this study, he assumed that if the number of Eagle Ford’s new producing wells increases progressively by 15–25 percent a year from 2013 on, this shale formation could reach a crude oil production of 1.5 mbd by 2017.
He assumed that, from 2014 on, the number of new producing wells would increase by 25 percent a year, allowing the Permian Basin shale crude oil production to exceed 1.3 mbd by 2017.
Considering the scarce data available for all U.S. shale oil plays other than the Big Three, he could not model the evolution of their future liquids production.
However, according to a probabilistic method (with a ±50 percent probability ratio of production, based on yet-to-find discoveries) assuming a number of new producing wells per year growing from 200 to 1,000 in 2017, with an average production of 30,000 b/d of crude oil during the first 12 months, he projected a cumulative crude oil production from all other U.S. shale oil plays of 400,000 crude oil b/d by 2017. This could be a highly conservative estimate, but in the absence of more reliable data, it is not possible to go beyond that hypothetical assumption.
Winners and Losers
The US will have less oil imports if this happens. Coal usage will be a loser, but more coal will be exported. Ethanol and biofuel liquid growth will be flat or negative.
I hope this causes OPEC to implode. It would be nice to see all the Arab Sheiks going back to riding camels because they are all bankrupt.
Obama: “ Well, we’ll soon put an end to THAT !! “
If the Hussein Heads were NOT trying to destroy America’s economy and make us subservient to Middle East terrorists, they would have already promoted and exploited this to Hussein’s advantage for bringing America’s economy BACK.
Leftist freaks will only see this as further proof that we need a Rat president to keep America’s environment “safe”.
FU Hussein Heads, and the Big Media freaks you ride in on!
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That was poorly said. We may be the number one petroleum producer if you count things like Natural Gas Liquids, refinery gain, ethanol, etc.
Our Crude Oil production is 7.35 MMBPD.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbblpd_m.htm
Yet from the same data source we see:
But those numbers still look less than Saudi Arabia's total. They ended last year at 11.24 MMBPD.
Let them practice sharia law on the desert wastes.
So why are we paying over $3.60 a gallon here in the Northeast?
I hope this causes OPEC to implode. It would be nice to see all the Arab Sheiks going back to riding camels because they are all bankrupt.
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i’d like to see that too. But the numbers don’t suggest for now that there’s much give in oil prices since rising production is only meeting rising demand.
However, five years from now things may look very different. Why? Because the rate of technological change is accelerating.
Because oil prices are set by worldwide demand.
Rising US production is being met by rising worldwide demand.
Right now the main thing that rising US production is doing is keeping a lid on prices.
My post here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3038337/posts
gives some indication of what expected supply and demand will be for the next couple years.
It doesn’t look much like prices are going to fall much at all because rising US production will be met by falling production elsewhere and rising demand all over.
And right now —according to the article I’ve linked to here—my idea that US demand will continue to fall—looks to be wrong.
I’d love to see what this study says about the possible production of the Green River Basin (mostly under Colorado, and about 98% under federal land) and the California shale formations that are both high in liquids, both huge (dwarfing Bakken and Eagle Ford, combined) and both unable to produce much if anything due to either state or federal refusal to allow production. THAT is the real story.
Bammy will just send his brother pig fornicators our money (kinda like he does now but more).
The Green River Basin hydrocarbons are oil shale or kerrogen. That’s a rock that has to be melted in order to yield out the oil. That process is much more expensive to produce oil than shale oil—which is the oil in the Bakken and the Eagle Ford and the Permian Basin. These are all on private lands.
The amount of recoverable oil in the Bakken has just been raised to about 40 billion barrels. The eagle Ford is currently at 15 billion barrels of oil and rising. The Permian basin’s many fields recoverable oil potential is unknown but the size and depth of the fields suggests that it could just dwarf everything everywhere.
These are the major shale oil plays but there are numerous others smaller plays around the country.
I just don’t think the significance of the current technological revolution in oil extraction has been fully realized. In any case the USA is headed toward energy abundance and oil exporter status.
That said, the Monterrey shale is a very fractured formation due to the continents colliding against each other. While the deposits there may be big—recoverable reserves may be a total sketch. Its too soon to tell.
THAT is the real story.
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The real story in the Green River basin is that the feds are not moving ahead with producing thorium reactors which would make electricity cheaply enough to allow for the cheap extraction of oil from oil shale.
(If the feds could get the Green River formation into production they would reap trillions of dollars in revenues. But alas they just can’t think things through.)
looks like the Mexicans are going to jack up the price of natural gas.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3038368/posts
So, we deepen our ownership of the House, recapture the Senate and squeeze Obama until a new President is in place. Plus, the states have a lot of leeway as to economic policy. Federalism is still alive...for now.
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