I have documented the cycle repeatedly in my columns, and I expect I'll never run short of such stories.īut don't expect any of the big-name publications who touted The oil and gas industry, it's the circle of life. Live up to their promise or to be lucky enough to get sold off at an inflated price.Īnd a few operators wind up bankrupt or acquired for pennies on the dollar. More leases wind up languishing on operators' balance sheets, having failed to Pockets, who wind up writing down massive losses on their purchases. Some leases get flipped to latecomers with deep "gold rush" ensues, with players rushing in to snap up acreage andĭrill, baby, drill. Independence," based on little but opaque industry-funded claims. ItĪlways starts with a hyped-up story about incipient "energy
#All fracked up movie#
Despite nearlyĥ,000 wells that were drilled in Monterey Formation over the past threeĭecades, its production peaked in 1982 and likewise steadily declined since then.Īs I said at the opening, we've seen this movie before. Oil production peaked in 1985, and it has slowly declined ever since. June 2011 story on the Kern River oil field near Bakersfield.) (For a close-up look at one of those regions, see my Provided the oil produced from wells in the San Joaquin basin for more than aĬentury, as well as decades of production from numerous other fields, including Of the longest-producing formations in the country. The Monterey Shale is not a new discovery in fact, it's one
Separately, five California academic economists who reviewed the USC study "were puzzled by its findings, and baffled by its methodology," and likewise concluded that it was not credible. Oil production estimates in the USC study lack credibility." Of potential well locations in the MontereyĪt 28,032, it's highly unlikely that the USC production target could beĪchieved even under the best circumstances. With brutal precision, Hughes highlights the differenceīetween the actual figures and those in the EIA/INTEK report:Ĭonsidering that the EIA/INTEK report estimated the total number The claim in the EIA/INTEK report that 1,750 square miles canīe drilled to a density of 16 wells per square mile is likely not true. Productive oil regions are a relatively small part of the overallįormation. Likely to average one-third or less of that assumed by the EIA/INTEK report. Lifetime oil production ("ultimate recovery") per well is Initial production rates of the existing Monterey wells are only about one-half to one-quarter of those claimed in the EIA/INTEK report. The gap between the reality and the hype could not be more Geological properties, current production, and production potential of the Reality Check on the Monterey Shale" explains in exacting detail what the With a report offering the "first publicly available empirical analysis ofĪctual oil production data from the Monterey Formation," published by PostĬarbon Institute and Physicians, Scientistsīased on an analysis of actual production data from the Drillinginfo database, the most comprehensive oil and gas production database publicly Now, some 10 months after the ballyhooing in February,Ĭanadian geoscientist David Hughes has blown the Monterey Shale story to bits, Those damned environmentalists would get off the industry's back. Oil imports, bolster its balance sheet, and create lots of good jobs, if only The Monterey Shale resources could slash California's Region, which could become the next Bakken or Eagle Ford. Nation's estimated tight oil resources (or "reserves," in the case of Rush" in the Monterey Shale, which contained two-thirds of the How fracking would create a new California " gold Millions of readers took away a wafer-thin narrative about
Interested in generating buzz, not investigating the reality. Oil producer and revving up the state's economy like a smaller shale-oil deposit didĪs usual, the purveyors of this pablum were mainly
Of a small oil producer in the region, Santa Maria Energy, as saying that the Investor's Business Daily wondered if it could " save Oil Reserve May Now Be Within Reach," declared The New York Times. In February, coverage of California's Monterey Shale exploded in the mainstream press.
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