holy shit this is awesome if true, could reduce oil imports by half in 10 years

[blu]

News Headlines

A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.

Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day—more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.

great news

I really hope no one from the goverement fucks this up. keep the epa away

 

[uscitizen]

Umm since we consume 19.6 million barells per day....

 

[Martin35]

The sands being explored were well known for many years, the horizontal drilling methodology used to produce the "tight" thin stratified formations is still being developed but with ever increasing oil prices that technology will get a boost, as success breeds success.
Mud motors and directional steering techniques have come a long way.
Making predictions about the amount of reserves that will be gained is a suckers game in my opinion, the bird in the bush being a hypothetical and all.

 

[rdean]

Let's put all of our Republican scientists on our energy problems. Between the two of them, who knows what they might come up with?

 

[Mr. H.]

I wonder why they aren't using this technique in the state of New York?

Pensylvania is experiencing an economic boom because of it.

 

[Zander]

Obama thinks we'd be better off building more choo choo trains!!
CHOO CHOO!!!!

 

[Mr. H.]

That dude jumped the tracks long ago.

 

[uscitizen]

A good example of republican soloutions

 

[Trajan]

Umm since we consume 19.6 million barells per day....

how do you think we get anywhere? incrementally.

 

[Mr. H.]

A good example of republican soloutions

Republicans are this country's economic SWAT team. Democrats are the party of SQUAT.

 

[JiggsCasey]

This shoddy piece of journalism was played up on the business page of every major newspaper in the country (including ours), and denialists eat it right up, as intended.

Meanwhile, the FAR, far more important story about the former Saudi Aramco executive admitting inflated Saudi reserves gets buried, if it ran at all.

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices

US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%​

The Associated Press shale oil story above barely says a word about the drawbacks to hydraulic fracking, which is what this is about. It's a puff piece for domestic investment if there every was one. I challenge anyone to watch the documentary "Gasland," and then tell us all how we're "saved" by this "new" method. It's on HBO this month. It's not a new process at all, so the story is disingenuous from the opening sentence.

See, mini-earthquakes under your neighborhood and mine, injecting dozens of toxic chemicals into the ground to frack the gas and oil loose? Tends to pollute the water table.

For a bit of perspective, consider the parts of the story the Associated Press threw in there to "appear" impartial, yet failed to expand upon:

Environmentalists fear that fluids or wastewater from the process, called hydraulic fracturing, could pollute drinking water supplies. The Environmental Protection Agency is now studying its safety in shale drilling. The agency studied use of the process in shallower drilling operations in 2004 and found that it was safe.​

Oops. Shallow drilling tests 7 years ago isn't full-bore deep fracking. It's not safe at all. Did this author just submit the press release offered by Chesapeake Energy Systems?

Within five years, analysts and executives predict, the newly unlocked fields are expected to produce 1 million to 2 million barrels of oil per day, enough to boost U.S. production 20 percent to 40 percent. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates production will grow a more modest 500,000 barrels per day.​

This is flat incorrect at best, and willfully misleading at worst. Boosting it 20-40% assumes existing other capacity remains flat. Instead, it's declining. Shale oil production will not make up for that, no matter how quickly they pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the new infrastructure. Regardless, do you believe 500,0000 barrels per day increase will save western economies? We consume 20 million barrels per day, and by the time these fields are mature? Probably 25 million (assuming the recession truly ends and demand can even grow)

Even if the most optimistic forecast in this already questionable story is to be considered, within five years, any gains made by far-more expensive shale oil "expansion" won't come close to countering the decline of existing domestic and imported capacity.

And of course, the best part:

The country's shale oil resources aren't nearly as big as the country's shale gas resources. Drillers have unlocked decades' worth of natural gas, an abundance of supply that may keep prices low for years. U.S. shale oil on the other hand will only supply one to two percent of world consumption by 2015, not nearly enough to affect prices.​

Gosh... Somehow, this part might have been better served near the top where most readers stopped reading. Not buried near the tag line at the end.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Let's put all of our Republican scientists on our energy problems. Between the two of them, who knows what they might come up with?

I thought you said 6% of scientists are Republican. If there are only 2 Republican scientists that would mean there are only 33 scientists.

Liberal math strikes again.

 

[RGR]

The Associated Press shale oil story above barely says a word about the drawbacks to hydraulic fracking, which is what this is about. It's a puff piece for domestic investment if there every was one. I challenge anyone to watch the documentary "Gasland," and then tell us all how we're "saved" by this "new" method. It's on HBO this month. It's not a new process at all, so the story is disingenuous from the opening sentence.

So they are as ignorant about the oil business as you are. Hardly a surprise. And "Gasland" is a joke, people have been lighting their well water on fire for generations, only someone ignorant of what happens when coal mines are dewatered would think it was caused by hydraulic fracturing.

For the record, I have only been in charge of perhaps a few dozen frac jobs as a field engineer, so my experience with this procedure is limited.

Put another way, I've already forgotten more than Jiggs can cut and paste on the topic, or even manufacture whole cloth because he doesn't know anything about well design.

See, mini-earthquakes under your neighborhood and mine, injecting dozens of toxic chemicals into the ground to frack the gas and oil loose? Tends to pollute the water table.

No it doesn't. And what's funny is, you don't even know WHY.

Even if the most optimistic forecast in this already questionable story is to be considered, within five years, any gains made by far-more expensive shale oil "expansion" won't come close to countering the decline of existing domestic and imported capacity.

Please parrot a reference, because no one is about to take YOUR word for anything related to oil and gas. Come on Jiggys, whip out a cut and paste for us! Make it a good one! You wouldn't want to get caught making up nonsense like last time!

PS: Figured out when we can start that 2 for 5 deal yet, I've got me a hankering to be like the Clampetts and you are just the sort of sucker I need to make that happen!

 

[westwall]

For the record Jiggs because you clearly are far, far out of your depth yet again, ground water is called fossil water for a reason.

 

[JiggsCasey]

So they are as ignorant about the oil business as you are. Hardly a surprise. And "Gasland" is a joke, people have been lighting their well water on fire for generations, only someone ignorant of what happens when coal mines are dewatered would think it was caused by hydraulic fracturing.

Clever. But the documentary makes very clear that the instances alluded to arise only AFTER the fracking infrastructure goes in. Your punt to irrelevant, same-as-its-always been, coal mine instances has no bearing on what's actually presented in the film. LOL. What are you, a paid lobbyist now for the industry? You sure sound like one.

It's mind-boggling just how much of a douche you clearly are. You get more obnoxious with each response that tries distort the overall condition. I come on here perhaps twice a month, whereas you respond within the hour each time I visit. And yet you have only 70 posts. Are you that much of a fucking loser? Or is this a topic you're curiously eager to spin on random vBulletin forums?

For the record, I have only been in charge of perhaps a few dozen frac jobs as a field engineer, so my experience with this procedure is limited.

And yet, when asked, repeatedly, to display just how much shale gas (or shale oil) the U.S. has produced in any given year, you've flat deflected from the challenge, and on to petty and pretentious side pap that doesn't refute the condition at all.

Either way, thanks for revealing your agenda. You're in the industry, to the point of being obviously emotionally invested in its well-being. Gosh, who knew?

As an industry "insider", clearly you'd have the figures, and can offer the perspective, regarding just how much these "unconventionals" actually represent in overall energy pie chart. Both so far, and going forward into the near- to mid-term future.

It's obvious why. It's because you know that even the rosiest estimation of expanded unconventional production has never, and will not, offset existing conventional decline from past peak fields. If you could show how it would, by any accepted agency, you'd have been all over it. All you guys have done, including the drones quoted in that rosie AP story on U.S. shale oil this week, is say "it's down there, and we have magic new chemicals!"... not that its feasible to expand the industry inside the U.S. in any cost-effective manner that will sustain growth.

Put another way, I've already forgotten more than Jiggs can cut and paste on the topic, or even manufacture whole cloth because he doesn't know anything about well design.

Uh huh. When all else fails, appeal to unfalsifiable claim. A common sanctimonious internet tactic.

You may very well know all the ins-and-outs of hydraulic fracking, and that's so great!! It's truly fine work you lads are doing out there, shooting your chemical shake deep into the ground below to loosen up ever more oil and gas from within rock. ... But you're still not admitting to the minuscule liquid volume that shale gas and shale oil currently provide the existing paradigm. It's not much, never really will be.

Either way, I guess we'll find out how much traction the HF process has when the Science Advisory Board reviews the EPA's study on it in early March. Or, whenever it leaks.

No it doesn't. And what's funny is, you don't even know WHY.

Oh no? OK.... Why don't you write up a concise little narrative that explains the process for everyone in layman's terms. I mean, you know, replete with all the obligatory condescending bullshit on a personal level, but still possessing some semblance of substance. Tell us how the process in no way resembles a mini-earth quake. Or how the chemical mixture used is harmless.

Please parrot a reference, because no one is about to take YOUR word for anything related to oil and gas. Come on Jiggys, whip out a cut and paste for us! Make it a good one! You wouldn't want to get caught making up nonsense like last time!

Look at you, attempting to re-write forum history. So cute. Oops, nothing presented has been "made up nonsense."

Regardless, to respond to your latest challenge, here's that pesky Joint Chiefs thing again:

http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/joe2010.pdf

Note page 25, and that flat-as-can-be tan segment in the bottom IEA graph. Gosh, does that assessment of unconventional oil production somehow meet the plummeting light blue portion (representing dying existing capacity) going forward? They seem to be having to add a lot of other colors in order to keep up that ever-rising slope. Unfortunately, most of those other colors fall into the wedge the EIA has labeled "as yet unidentified." Kind of a problem.

And of course, the JOE's conclusion:

Energy Summary

To generate the energy required worldwide by the 2030s would require us to find an additional 1.4 MBD every year until then. During the next twenty-five years, coal, oil, and natural gas will remain indispensable to meet energy requirements. The discovery rate for new petroleum and gas fields over the past two decades (with the possible exception of Brazil) provides little reason for optimism that future efforts will find major new fields.

At present, investment in oil production is only beginning to pick up, with the result that production could reach a prolonged plateau. By 2030, the world will require production of 118 MBD, but energy producers may only be producing 100 MBD unless there are major changes in current investment and drilling capacity. By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.

Energy production and distribution infrastructure must see significant new investment if energy demand is to be satisfied at a cost compatible with economic growth and prosperity.

If that doesn't scream peak is here and decline is imminent, I don't know what does.

No doubt, you'll have some epin spin-spective on what that passage "reeeeally" means. Can't wait. Afterall, you're IN the industry. If not, you can just scramble to JD's famous little "peak oil debunked" Web site and get the fossil fuel flag fiefdom version. ... I know he hasn't posted since last summer, but I'm sure he'll be along any day now.

It's telling that you had no comment on the WikiLeaks cable regarding that "violin playing" former Saudi-Aramco VP, though. That's the far-more impacting story that broke this week. A good decision on your part to ignore it. You guys haven't quite gotten your marching orders on how to spin that one. You probably won't, and just get back to your "tried and true" method of pretending I'M the one who's the zealot and parrot between the two of us. Irony.

 

[JiggsCasey]

For the record Jiggs because you clearly are far, far out of your depth yet again, ground water is called fossil water for a reason.

LOL... Like I said... You're been reduced to sideline cheerleader.

Remember back when you mattered?

 

[Mr. H.]

*sigh*

Yet another hijacked thread.

Is it just coincidence your initials are the same as Jesus Christ's.

JEEEZUZ CHRISTE JIGGS GIVE IT A BREAK

 

[Truthmatters]

Obama thinks we'd be better off building more choo choo trains!!
CHOO CHOO!!!!

REALLY?

you are going to go there?


Do you understand at all what high speed rail offers a country?

 

[Old Rocks]

No, Zander understands little. If Grandpa didn't do it, it ain't worth doing. Another willfully ignorant ass.

 

[Truthmatters]

The desire to swat at ANYTHING that Obama proposes is obsessional with some of these people