Yeah I see you also pay attention.
CHK has already stated that they are shopping for a JV partner in teh Utica (just as they have already done w/ Statoil, CNOOC, etc. in the Marcellus, Niobrara, Barnett, Eagle Ford).
And no question CEO is a promoter, and he is promoting the Utica. But service companies I know back up his optimism.
The problem with specificity on BOPD and recovery rates is that it is so damn early in the the life of the play. Hell the Eagle Ford was originally thought to be a gas play, and now oil is driving everything (as you stated). And you can’t really know what you have until you see the production decline curve (called a type curve) over many years.
Bottom line for me: this is the most exciting time for domestic energy in my 30 year career, and it’s all due to hydraulic fracturing advances. I don’t mean to sound like Aubrey on Mad Money, but this is game-changing.
It’s good to like your work.
And it’s going to exciting to get gas out on the upslope.
But it’s not a game changer. The reason is that horizontals die vertically. Meaning hydrau fracking does not increase permeability past the frack zone, and that means when you go empty, you go empty all of a sudden. The right side of the peak is vertical.
So when you integrated the area under the curve, the left side of the peak looks like solid totals, but they are not half of the total, they are all of it. The right side of the peak slopes straight down. Horizontals die vertically.
We’ll see, though. No point leaving it in the ground where it helps nobody. But in my right wing conservative view, the only fix for this crushing scarcity is to depopulate the east coast of China, and I mean militarily. There is no point in Americans not burning oil so Chinese can.