[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zoidberg', '
')I'm not religious. Planned parenthood is brutally murder ing babies for profit. I dont need a god to tell me that's bad. Contraception is good I never said otherwise and women do ultimately have control over their bodies but it needs to be a last resort done as quickly as possible into the pregnancy before the fetus can feel any pain. That should be basic ethics but apparently not...

[ROCKMAN]

KJ - I do appreciate how your electronic tech world had blossomed over the last 40 to 50 years. I have also seen a similar change in the dynamics in my world of fossil fuel extraction. But going in the opposite direction from an opportunity standpoint. Of course the oil patch has had great tech improvements during that same time. But those were driven by the increasing difficulty in finding significant oil/NG reserves. Which isn't to say they haven't been found: N Slope, DW GOM, DW Brazil, N Sea, etc. But the key part of that sentence: "been found". The exploration tech is magnitudes better today than when I started 40 years ago. Great success rate but that's not the problem. THE problem is find new trends to develop. There are no new big conventional trends that have been discovered for many years. The unconventional trends HAD big potential thanks to higher oil prices. And now much of that potential has evaporated.

There are virtually no new areas to explore excepting the Arctic and some other DW area. Exploration and production tech will continue to advance in the oil patch. But that won't create big new trends because there’s almost no place left for them to exist. Not a new idea: how many times has someone posted the graphic showing the decreasing volume of new conventional discoveries? The shales weren't even new unconventional trends that were suddenly discovered: we've known about the Bakken and Eagle Ford Shale for more than half a century. It just took high enough oil prices to launch them...prices that have no disappeared to a fair extent.

Folks can be as optimistic as they wish about various tech improvements. But I’ve studied petroleum provinces for 40 years just as thousands of my cohorts have. And we all have the same understanding: there is no meaningful potential for the development of a significant volume of conventional reserves. And even unconventional reserves have their limit regardless of the price of oil/NG. It won’t happen next year or even ten years from now. But we are on a path which we cannot escape.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '-')snip-

You got around a good bit. I was in Lizard City almost my entire enlistment. First A school then my posting until I got out. I did have about 2 months at Curtis Bay right after boot camp, cleaning heads and laying bricks. I did C school for Loran C.

I did a year at Atlantic City as a reservist but gave it up quickly.

ET I presume?

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'K')J - I do appreciate how your electronic tech world had blossomed over the last 40 to 50 years. I have also seen a similar change in the dynamics in my world of fossil fuel extraction. But going in the opposite direction from an opportunity standpoint. Of course the oil patch has had great tech improvements during that same time. But those were driven by the increasing difficulty in finding significant oil/NG reserves. Which isn't to say they haven't been found: N Slope, DW GOM, DW Brazil, N Sea, etc. But the key part of that sentence: "been found". The exploration tech is magnitudes better today than when I started 40 years ago. Great success rate but that's not the problem. THE problem is find new trends to develop. There are no new big conventional trends that have been discovered for many years. The unconventional trends HAD big potential thanks to higher oil prices. And now much of that potential has evaporated.

There are virtually no new areas to explore excepting the Arctic and some other DW area. Exploration and production tech will continue to advance in the oil patch. But that won't create big new trends because there’s almost no place left for them to exist. Not a new idea: how many times has someone posted the graphic showing the decreasing volume of new conventional discoveries? The shales weren't even new unconventional trends that were suddenly discovered: we've known about the Bakken and Eagle Ford Shale for more than half a century. It just took high enough oil prices to launch them...prices that have no disappeared to a fair extent.

Folks can be as optimistic as they wish about various tech improvements. But I’ve studied petroleum provinces for 40 years just as thousands of my cohorts have. And we all have the same understanding: there is no meaningful potential for the development of a significant volume of conventional reserves. And even unconventional reserves have their limit regardless of the price of oil/NG. It won’t happen next year or even ten years from now. But we are on a path which we cannot escape.

[Newfie]

I do not rule out something dramatic, but at our ages the chance of our living to see it go down significantly each day.

Cheers!

[ralfy]

It's too late to imagine that things will get serious decades from now because that started a decade ago, with various countries falling apart and the global economy remaining weak.

[zoidberg]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zoidberg', 'P')lanned parenthood is brutally murder ing babies for profit.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', 'I')t's too late to imagine that things will get serious decades from now because that started a decade ago, with various countries falling apart and the global economy remaining weak.

[ROCKMAN]

KJ – “and recovery techniques such as fracking have yet to be applied to a lot of fields.” Unfortunately for the US that isn’t true. There isn’t one of the many dozens of US shales formations that hasn’t had its oil potential tested by Hz frac’d wells. The public doesn’t know about it as a rule since companies, especially pubcos, don’t make a habit of issuing big press releases about their failures. LOL. While my company has never had any interest in drilling such wells we would have invested hundreds of $millions in leasing portions of any trend that looked to have such potential. Remember Petrohawk didn’t make $15 billion from the EFS trend by drilling wells: they made it by selling their formerly cheap acreage positions to folks that wanted to drill. My company was very prepared to do the same be it the Mississipian Lime, the Cline Shale, etc. The Rockman was specifically tasked with watching the HUNDREDS of pilot projects conducted in all the US shale trends. And none were shown to have the oil potential of the Bakken and EFS. Again proven by the fact that 80%+ of oil shale production comes from just the Bakken and EFS. And even that isn’t coming from all areas of those trends. For instance Halcon (the former Petrohawk guys) has been losing its ass in the EFS in east Texas. Which is one reason they plunged hard into the Marine Tuscaloosa Shale in La…where they are also currently losing their ass. LOL.

I’ve posted the reality before: shales for the most part are not viable commercial candidates for exploitation. The factors required are rather rare. The volume of rock that comprises the Bakken and EFS amount to less than 1% of the total thickness of the US shale formations. Consider in just the same area as the EFS (measuring around 200’ in thickness) the cumulative thickness of the other shale formations above and below the EFS exceeds 12,000’. And yet have you seen any reports of commercial shale oil production from the Wilcox, Frio, Vicksburg, Miocene, etc shale formations? And globally it’s completely insignificant as attested to by the lack of any meaningful shale development going on around the world.

The vast majority of shales will never be commercial targets even at oil prices above $100/bbl. The required geologic conditions don’t exist.

[KaiserJeep]

So Rockman, tell us when the oil is too expensive to burn. I think the technology of extraction will continue to advance, the price of a barrel will first bottom and then rise steadily, and the unconventional wells will be drilled and sooner or later all the recoverable oil will be affordable, up until the rising cost of energy just flat out kills motor transport.

The classic soft crash, in other words. I just don't know how many decades we are talking about. Too many variables, including the technology, the population, the amount of warfare, and how much of it occurs in the Middle East, whether the conflict goes nuclear, etc.

I think we have already peaked. Half the oil is gone. From here on out, the supply shrinks, the price rises, and eventually, even Americans can't afford to live.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', ' ')globally it’s completely insignificant as attested to by the lack of any meaningful shale development going on around the world.

[ROCKMAN]

Plant, Plant, Plant...do you even bother to read your own link that shows how far you have your head up your lovely ass? LOL. From your link:

“The Vaca Muerta play could well be the best oil and gas shale opportunity outside of the US and Canada presently,” says Deborah Resley, manager for Latin America at IHS Energy, a consultancy."

{Do we understand the meaning of "could be"? A tad different meaning then "is the best"}

“The recoverable resources are there, but there has to be a further reduction in well costs. Nobody has a magic bullet on efficiencies in Vaca Muerta exploitation yet,” she adds, pointing out that Argentina is not yet able to provide locally all the services and supplies needed to extract the resources economically. YPF says it has cut the cost for basic “vertical” wells below $7m, down from more than $11m in 2011. But that is still well short of the $4m-$5m target, while in the US they cost as little as $2m-$3m."

{Or in more simple terms: the "Dead Cow" trend (a rather appropriate name at this point) has yet to produce a single bbl of oil at a profit. Do you need a reminder of what the word "insignificant" means? LOL}

[ROCKMAN]

KJ - Two potential problems with that line of reasoning IMHO. First, despite all the hype there has not been a major leap in either Hz drilling or frac'ng for about 20 years. You're certainly free to speculate about "new technology" but you also can't even hypothesize about what it might specifically be. But don't feel bad: I talk to the service companies that would develop such tech and none of them appear to have any idea either. LOL. What made the Bakken and EFS boom was the big change in the price of oil. The very same reason those plays are now floundering.

Second, the vast majority of the various shale trends tested with frac'd hz wells were proven non-commercial or, at best, marginally profitable when oil was $90+/bbl. So what: they might work at $150 -$200 per bbl? And how would the consumers afford such a price tag?

Again everyone can be as optimistic as they wish to be. But that's an optimism based upon necessity and not reality IMHO. Just like the optimism of Plant who sees a great potential in an Argentinian shale that has yet to produce a single bbl of profitable oil.