[Praxeologue]

"NoDak and Texas don't have 80 million years of earthquakes to eliminate *horizontal* from the layers. In fact, every earthquake and volcano over the 80 million years was cracking those layers and letting the oil migrate away."

[Milton Miteybad]

Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California's vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national "black gold mine" of petroleum.

Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

I had always regarded the early estimates for the Monterey Shale as very optimistic, nearly to the point of being delusionally so. It made me wonder where this estimate came from. Turns out it was the work product of, as set forth in the LA Times article, a consulting outfit in Virginia, under a contract awarded by the Energy Information Agency.

Now, with all due respect to the fine folks of the Commonwealth of Virginia, it surely is not the first place you go to find top-flight geoscientists and petroleum engineers. Paper-pushing bureaucrats, yes. Reservoir engineers? No. The original Monterey Shale reserve estimates produced by that outfit prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I wonder how much that group charged the U.S. taxpayer for those bogus reserve estimates, anyway.

[Veto!]

Where did that oil go? Perhaps the Chinese are slant-drilling from ships over the horizon.

Did I really say that?

[crusty old prospector]

Where did you get that gibberish quote from?

[clearcarbon]

"U.S. officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey Shale oil by 96%"

Smells like another "the science is settled" moment.

[zeestephen]

Sorry, California.

I guess the OPEC budget “solution” won’t work after all.

Does this mean the last group of white Liberal hold outs will be moving to Seattle?

[Amagi]

Yes.
We believe the government.
That would be the government headed by Oliar who said we only have 2-3% of the world's known oil reserves.
That would be the government that places obstacles of all manner in accessing, refining, shipping, etc., of our vast natural energy bounty whether it be coal, offshore oil, terrestrial oil, oil shale, etc.
Actually I've reached the point where I am highly skeptical of every damn government pronouncement as being just another damn lie supporting a Marxist political agenda.

[ckilmer]

“NoDak and Texas don’t have 80 million years of earthquakes to eliminate *horizontal* from the layers. In fact, every earthquake and volcano over the 80 million years was cracking those layers and letting the oil migrate away.”
............
but the faulting in texas and colorado and north dakota just doesn’t compare with the faulting in California. The ground in california is way too knotty knarly for a drill.

That is, I’ve seen pictures of the ground they’re trying to drill and it looks knotty knarlier than oak stump burl.

[American Constitutionalist]

Ok folks, are you a oil optimist ? or a debbie downer ?
Where they say " we can't " where there seems to be no way, God will make a way.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Someone WILL come up a way to extract that Monterey Shale oil efficiently and at a cost effective way.

[American Constitutionalist]

The next “ BIG ONE “ in California will perhaps crack open all that shale... hey who says no good thing comes from earthquakes.

[Colonel_Flagg]

U.S. officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey Shale oil by 96%

Gee, how 'unexpected'.