"As Wall Street, CNBC, and feckless politicians tout American energy independence from the miracle of shale oil, reality is already rearing its ugly head. Production grew by 24% over the first six months of 2012. Production has grown by only 7% over the first six months of 2013. That is a dramatic slowdown. The fact is that these wells deplete at an extremely rapid rate. Oil companies will always seek out the easiest to access oil first. They have already accessed the easy stuff. This explains the dramatic slowdown. Peak Bakken oil production will be below 1 million barrels per day. The last time I checked, we consumed 18 million barrels per day. I wonder when that energy independence will be achieved? Reality is a bitch ... The headlines ring of “booming” American oil production and “gluts” of oil (USO). I’m here to tell you that while the boom is real, there is no glut of oil and we need to be aware that the huge production growth of the past eighteen months is going to slow. It already is slowing. I’ve been watching what is going on in the Bakken pretty closely because I think it is going to be an excellent proxy for what will happen across the country ... Yes, the rate of growth in the Bakken has slowed considerably in 2013. To understand why, a person needs to look at the production profile for these horizontal oil wells. By the end of the first year of production, a new well is producing at a rate that is 30% of where it was the year before. That means a huge amount of drilling each year has to be done just to offset the production lost due to these steep decline rates ... Production growth in the Bakken is slowing and so too will production growth in the Eagle Ford. That is the nature of these horizontal oil fields. We get an initial surge in production as capital comes into the play. Then that growth rate slows steadily until it flattens and enters a decline."
Zum Artikel von Devon Shire, erschienen auf The Burning Plattform (22. September 2013) »
Zum Artikel von Devon Shire, erschienen auf The Burning Plattform (22. September 2013) »
