Oil and Gas boom?

[ca_north]

Originally Posted by highlife2

So I am hearing that North Dakota is going to surpass Alaska in oil production in a few years. While that stat may be true is this actually translating into plentiful fatty paying jobs or is it all just hype and fizzle. Would be nice to know what the real deal is in case things in alaska tank.

Oil production (even at high prices) is never a good indicator of good jobs so I just wanted to ask. BTW im a process/chemical engineer with a PE.

If you study the geology of the situation, you'll see that desperation oil is being mistaken for salvation oil.

Absurdly optimistic numbers come from oil-in-place being confused with recoverable reserves. The latest USGS Bakken assessment shows only about 7.4 billion recoverable barrels, but hypsters refer to 500+ billion barrels of hypothetical oil by ignoring EROEI.

People don't understand (or in many cases don't care to understand) that tight shale oil is part of the 1970 U.S. oil production peak, not a true reversal of it. This is costly oil and it only gives a fraction of U.S. daily consumption (about 1 mbpd from Bakken vs. 20 mbpd U.S. usage) . Many shale wells only become profitable around $80 per barrel, and new holes constantly have to be drilled to maintain flow rates.

Tight, shallow-breadth formations like Bakken also peak much sooner than conventional crude. The easy oil goes first, and it's largely gone in America. Horizontal drilling isn't magic and more energy is expended making tight oil flow. This is boom town stuff, not some resurrection. People need to think longer term.

Dry kerogen shale (not true oil) has much lower EROEI than wet shale, with Shell abandoning a kerogen shale project it spent decades trying on. Yet, that very type of shale is what ignorant people claim will make America "energy independent" (again, based on oil-in-place estimates, not truly recoverable oil).

As for natural gas, there's relatively more of it than shale oil vs. conventional oil, but it's also being over-hyped. Then, there's the environmental damage that people try to wish away for the sake of feel-good patriotism and profits.

Graphs like this showing the shale spike may seem promising, but it will run out of steam, especially as conventional crude continues to peak around the word and unconventional oil can't prop it up. Right now, we have the luxury of conventional crude "underneath" the unconventional tight oil sources, making it seem a lot more robust.

[flyingcat2k]

Comparing shale plays to each other like this is a bit misleading. The Shell project was on a VERY tight shale that did not respond well to fracturing from what I have heard. The Bakken and Eagle Ford shales respond well and I have heard of very little in filling wells in either play. Most wells being drilled now are considered exploratory in either Bakken or Three Forks formations and the EOR is in debate as there are 7 to 14 different shale, depending on which producer you listen to. The Bakken will likely cap out at 1.2 mmbbl/d due to infrastructure, not due to drilling. Producers can only fill so many rail cars and only so many trains can make it out of ND. Until some more pipelines get in the ground, it will take a while to beat that.

80 is REALLY high for a public net profit on shale wells in Eagle Ford and Bakken. The public number I've heard is 55-60 which is about even with tar sands crude production. 80 is probably necessary for exploration in Colorado and California, where there is a lot of opposition and more restrictions on operations, not because the oil formation is difficult.