Posted on 04/01/2013 1:53:25 PM PDT by thackney
Development of California's Monterey shale formation can play the major role in the state's future economic well-being, noted a recent study, "Powering California: The Monterey Shale and California's Economic Future", released by the University of Southern California (USC) and Los Angeles-based think tank Communications Institute.
California's Monterey shale is estimated to hold 15 billion barrels of oil and development of the 1,750-square mile formation in central California could generate half a million new jobs by 2015 and 2.5 million jobs by 2020.
"This report provides an indication that there is one potential bright spot in California's economic future: the increased production of energy," the report stated. "California has long served as the incubator for emerging energy sources and technologies, as the state has taken advantage of both technology and its natural resources to become a leader in the generation of renewable energy. Now, these same technological and resource advantages can allow the state to return to leadership in the production of oil."
The Monterey/Santos play, a prolific source rock for many of California's large oil fields, is considered by far the largest shale oil formation in the United States, roughly two-thirds of total oil shale potential. By those numbers, the Monterey reserves trump the Bakken and Eagle Ford fields.
This new onshore oil play can easily pump up the nation's oil output by 25 percent in just a few years and help the state's local energy picture. California has more recoverable reserves in shale than nearby big oil-producing countries, according to a July 2012 report issued by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
To tap this prolific shale play, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing would most likely be used, which has riled environmentalists to oppose this widely-used drilling technique. And much pressure has been placed on California's Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, but the opposite has occurred.
"We want to get the greenhouse gas emissions down, but we also want to keep our economy going," he said at a March 13 press conference, Reuters reported. "That's the balance that's required. The fossil fuel deposits in California are incredible, the potential is extraordinary. But between now and development lies a lot of questions that need to be answered."
The study forecasts that the state could greatly benefit, about $4.5 billion in oil-related tax revenue in 2015 and $24.6 billion by 2020. California boasts perhaps the largest deep-shale reserves in the world – reserves that, unlike elsewhere, hold the promise for an unprecedented volume of advanced crude oil production, the study noted. California's well-known offshore reserves contain more than 10 billion barrels of oil and nearly 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas but the onshore play is projected to hold even more oil – more than 15 billion barrels, according to the EIA.
"Gov. Brown is trying to do what he feels is best for California and he realizes that much of the negative publicity was not based on an understanding of the facts," stated Don Clarke, a Los Angeles consulting geologist, in an interview with Rigzone. "We must protect the environment and any Monterey development can only be done with proper consideration to the environment and especially the groundwater."
Development of the oil-shale deposits may boost the state's economic activity by as much as 14.3 percent, the study said. And with that, increasing the state's per-capita gross domestic product (GDP).
"California, whose Monterey Formation alone is estimated to be four times larger than North Dakota's Bakken reserve, has chosen… to sharply limit its fossil-fuel industry. As a result, it has generated barely one-tenth the new fossil-fuel jobs in archrival Texas. Not surprisingly, California … lagged behind in GDP and income growth, while the energy states have for the most part enjoyed the strongest gains," author Joel Kotkin said Dec. 7 in the Daily Beast.
Evil oil? NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://communicationsinstitute.org/Monterey_Shale_Report_Final_130328.pdf
Executive Summary
The Monterey Shale Formation in California, like other shale oil and gas reserves around the nation,
has been widely cited as a potential “gold mine” of oil resources in California. Recent headlines attest to
its increasing role in the California energy debate:
- “Monterey’s black gold could jumpstart California’s
- “Could Monterey Shale Save California?” (Investors.com)
- “The battle is heating up over California’s vast Monterey shale field” (Examiner.com)
There is good reason for this interest: the Monterey Shale contains an estimated 15-plus billion
barrels of oil, representing more than two-thirds of all known U.S. shale reserves. But the story is not
quite so simple. Oil cannot be extracted from deep shale formations like Monterey through the use of
conventional oil wells, like those that dot many California landscapes. Rather, advanced oil-extraction
technologies, like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, are required.
Hydraulic fracturing, a well-established, advanced means of extracting oil and natural gas from subsurface shale formations, has emerged in particular during the past several years as a technique with
high potential for increasing the volume of oil and natural gas producible within the United States. The
technique has been employed over the past decade in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, primarily in
the production of natural gas, and was cited last year by the International Energy Agency as a key factor
in the possibility that the United States soon could achieve the long-sought goal of net energy selfsufficiency.
However, advanced extraction technologies like hydraulic fracturing are not without their critics.
The technique has been blamed for such adverse environmental consequences as ground water
contamination, excessive wastewater production, increased seismic activity, and transportation and
land-use challenges. Such problems, were they to materialize in any major way in California, could
overwhelm the proposed benefits of developing the Monterey Shale, with the unfortunate result that
the more widely spread usage of the associated extraction technologies could wind up doing more harm
than good. While some analysts and proponents of hydraulic fracturing assert that these concerns either
are overstated or could be adequately addressed through effective regulation or remediation, the
balance of benefits and costs has not yet been definitively established.
It will never happen. Does anybody want to bet on it?
Enviros: No. And not only no, but hell no........
Every day is April Fools Day to the leftist hacks in Sacto and their complicit idiot voters who put them there. Then again maybe its a good thing since those leftists would only spend more with increased oil revenues—a zero sum game at best for Kookifornicata.
It will happen.
When California becomes part of Mexico.......again......
“While some analysts and proponents of hydraulic fracturing assert that these concerns either
are overstated or could be adequately addressed through effective regulation or remediation, the
balance of benefits and costs has not yet been definitively established.”
It is “controversial”, like the idea that steel ships might float. More studies are called for.
It has already happened.
This area is split estate with the feds owning the subsurface drilling rights.
Obama had the first lease sale in 2011 and the second lease sale, which was much larger than the first, in Dec 2012.
As for fracking, it shouldn't be a problem because CA requires complete disclosure on the fracking fluids which means the enviros can't sue over that.
-— “This report provides an indication that there is one potential bright spot in California’s economic future: the increased production of energy,” the report stated. -—
I see that the report has a sense of humor.
Brown is already fracking California!!!
Jackpot from extorting energy companies or appeasing the enviros.
What’s a liberal governor to do?
If it happens, it needs to happen somewhere else.......dude.
I really wish it would. Then maybe some of the loonie lefties will leave Texas and return to California.
Yeah, not gonna fracking happen. If there’s not already a law to prevent it from happening, there will be. There’s probably some rare worm or grub in the environmental areas they want to “rape and pillage” for evil energy, so that’s an obvious one right there.
That means OPEN THE BORDER!!!
Useful to remind in all these threads that there is nothing new here.
Horizontal drilling and fracking have been around 20+ years. The only thing that got them prominent was price. PRICE. Nothing else. Raise the price of gasoline at the tank high enough and you can “find” oil (that everyone has always known was there).
No, regulations didn’t stop it. Lack of investment stopped it. If the price is too low, you can’t make a profit drilling, so you don’t drill — and the absence of drilling will then send zealots screaming that “Obama won’t let them drill!!”. Truth is, get the price up and the drilling happens, regardless of Obama.
The Bakken’s output has been down in 2 of the last 3 months. There are increasing signs that it, as a field, will begin to die decades before the hype projections. These price dependent shale plays do not last. There are entirely too many people taking two or three years of data points and drawing a straight line through them upwards to infinity.
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