[thackney]

if you Hydraulic Frac a well, either oil or natural gas, you have to have a higher sales price for the oil or gas

No. No company would ever do it if that was the case.

It does raise the cost per well. But it produces so much more oil, the cost per barrel is less.

. It is not that there is more oil there when you frac it.... it is just that you can drill and recover oil where we used to couldn’t.

Far more oil is produced by hydraulic fracturing the well.

t is just that you can drill and recover oil where we used to couldn’t.

Correct, the same well would have the oil too expensive to produce without hydraulic fracturing. Too little oil would flow to economically recover the cost drill.

They may spend up to 5 times more to hydraulic fracture the well, but produce 50 times the amount of oil (could be greatly more or less).

[kjam22]

I retire from Chesapeake Energy. Worked for Aubrey McClendon. He's the guy who pioneered shale drilling. Starting in the Barnett shale. I was in marketing. I understand finding costs. I understand total reserves. And I understand marketing.

In the old days they would frac a traditional, vertical well to increase production. It was an enhancement when you fracked a 30 or 40 foot sand payzone. And, if you remember, sometimes those wells were fracked with nitrogen instead of water. But, you're right that would increase the production on those wells. Shale drilling is different. There is no production from shale without fracking. Used to shale was just a tight formation that couldn't be produced. Today the horizontal drilling through that formation combined with fracking allows oil and gas to be produced. But the reserves aren't necessarily greater than the reserves on a traditional well.

At the end of the day, that's what you're talking about. Reserves, cost to drill, cost to produce.... and what you have to sell it for to be profitable.