Production cost do not include exploration cost, ie, reserve replacement cost.
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Yeah, you’ve mentioned that before. But technology is such a huge wild card. Consider the statement that they’re only getting 20% of the oil “in place” with current technology.
I find that shocking. I thought they were getting 40% of the oil in place. 20% leaves a whole lot of room for growth 10-20 years from now when technology improves with no exploration or reserve replacement costs.
Something I don’t understand but maybe you can explain. The article says
“According to an engineering manager at oil field services giant Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) told Platts that U.S. shale production is only going to go up. His reasons: the vast size of the resource and growing familiarity with it. He also said that there’s plenty of room to improve extraction techniques and minimize the pushback from environmental groups. In the Eagle Ford shale play, for example, Schlumberger now uses well log data to determine the first five wells to drill in a new area. The technique has improved production by 33%. “
Do you consider well log data to be a facet of drilling costs or exploration costs.
Do you understand how many decades it took us to change 20% in traditional reservoirs to 30%, and tertiary methods to 40%?
This isn't something just waiting around for someone to take a look at it. It is a massive undertaking.
Well log data can be part of either production development or exploration, if I understand it correctly. If you are drilling in a new area, well log data is part of the analysis in finding commercial plays. It is also used to select the best drilling locations and the like for developing a play found to be commercial producing.