Shale Oil

Results may vary: Beware of kaleidoscopic vision in the oil and gas industry

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Like children looking through a kaleidoscope who are unaware of its actual workings, the media and the public have been misled into believing that early production results in the shale natural gas and tight oil formations in the United States will be repeated again and again across the United States and the world.

Commentary: Texas and Eagle Ford – Where the Action Is

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A lot has been made in the media about how rapidly oil production is increasing in North Dakota due to development of tight oil in the Bakken Shale region of the state. Less has been made of the rapidly increasing oil production in Texas. According to United States Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration (US DOE/EIA) data, oil production is rising faster in Texas than it is in North Dakota: a 523,000 b/d increase for Texas versus a 243,000 b/d increase for North Dakota in 2012, relative to 2011, based upon US DOE/EIA data as of 2/28/13.

The End of the Shale Bubble?

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It’s been a little more than a year since I launched the present series of posts on the end of America’s global empire and the future of democracy in the wake of this nation’s imperial age. Over the next few posts I plan on wrapping that theme up and moving on. However traumatic the decline and fall of the American empire turns out to be, after all, it’s just one part of the broader trajectory that this blog seeks to explore, and other parts of that trajectory deserve discussion as well.

Comments on the hearing on “American Energy Security and Innovation”, February 5th, 2013

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“Many small creeks make a large stream” is a Swedish saying that describes well the production of shale oil and shale gas. Equivalent English sayings are, “Many a little makes a mickle”, (that originated in Scotland and then President George Washington used in a text of 1793) and “Many drops make a river”. If one looks at a map of the Bakken showing only the top 20% best producing wells one cannot deny that there are many “drops”. The hearing that the Subcommittee on Energy and Power (US House of Representatives) held on 5 February, investigated whether all these many wells can amount to “American Energy Security”.

Gas flaring at Bakken and Eagle Ford

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Since the IEA presented its World Energy Outlook report of 2012 the world’s press has spread the news that the USA can become a larger oil producer than Saudi Arabia. They have also reported on increased production of shale gas. During recent years production of shale gas has increased so greatly that the price of natural gas has fallen to levels where it is no longer profitable to drill new wells. I have previously described how drilling rigs are leaving the shale gas fields. Today, the Oil&Gas Journal reported that, “Oil prices rise in mixed market but gas ‘falls off cliff’”.

The really, really big picture: There isn’t going to be enough net energy for the economic growth we want

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[Many longtime followers of the Crash Course have asked Chris to update his forecasts for Peak Oil in light of the production increases in shale oil and gas over recent years. What started out as a modest effort at clarification morphed into a much more massive 3-report treatise as Chris sifted through mountains of new data that ultimately left him more convinced than ever we are facing a global net energy crisis–despite misguided media efforts intended to convince us otherwise. His reports are being released in series over the next several weeks; the first installment is below.]

ODAC Newsletter Nov 23

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A week of brutal bombing and rocket fire between Israel and Hamas pushed oil prices back to around $110/barrel this week. A fragile ceasefire is now in place, but there is much concern that it will be short-lived. Oil market news may all be about US production, but it is primarily the politics and geopolitics of the Middle East that is still driving global oil prices.

A Closer Look at Bakken and U.S. Oil Production

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Recent US news reports have highlighted the fact that US oil production has been rising and is now higher than it has been in years. Reports that highlight the recent US oil production increase don’t mention that oil production outside of Texas and North Dakota has actually declined in the last few years.

Oil – Nov 19

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•US shale oil abundance: Bernstein vs the IEA •US limits oil-shale development in Rocky Mountains •Fracking: A new dawn for misplaced optimism •Nigeria Exxon spill spreads for miles along coast •Thousands Protest Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Outside White House •The World Running on ‘E’: The Coming Oil Crisis