[ROCKMAN]

"It's an attractive concept during a glut because you can point to all sorts of non-oil issues and say "SEE! Look! Peak oil *!". Actually just the opposite if you pulled your head out of your butt. LOL. It's not peak oil. And more specifically has little to with peak oil. But has everything to do with the entire system that effects the supply and price of oil. And as the last 8 years PROVE CATEGORICALLY the supply and oil price are little dependent on some PO date.

[ROCKMAN]

Every "flood" has to start somewhere: a company just received approval to drill and frac 4 wells in the new big shale play in the U.K. Now just another 5,000+ wells to go...assuming these first wells have encouraging results. And then watch out...the flood begins!

But might take a while: the UK has about 50 drill rigs compared to the 1,750 we had running during the height of the US shale boom.

[SumYunGai]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'E')very "flood" has to start somewhere: a company just received approval to drill and frac 4 wells in the new big shale play in the U.K. Now just another 5,000+ wells to go...assuming these first wells have encouraging results. And then watch out...the flood begins!

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut might take a while: the UK has about 50 drill rigs compared to the 1,750 we had running during the height of the US shale boom.

[ROCKMAN]

Doc - "...significant thick discoveries in Brookian submarine fan sandstones." Mucho thanks. Always interested in hearing about tubidite discoveries. Did my MS thesis on such a fan field in the San Joaquin Basin producing from the Stevens Sand. At Mobil Oil in the mid 70's I saw fanlike morphology on seismic in DW GOM that was in much too deep water at the time to drill. It will be interest to see what facies holds the most oil.

[ROCKMAN]

SYG - "In which case, aren't you guys getting a little ahead of yourselves?" I probably should be more clear when mocking such optimistic expectations. I've spent 4 decades rejecting such hype about more drilling proposals the I could guess. I was usually nice and told the project did fit our goals. And didn't add that our goal wasn't drilling crappy ideas. LOL.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('radon1', 'P')OD is about depletion, and it is much more focused than an "economics" talk. In addition, it incorporates geology etc., i.e. the things outside the realm of "economics". "Economics" are a only slightly better than etp anyway.

[tita]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'E')arly days but very interesting.

[ROCKMAN]

tita - "We'll have to do much better for this "oil flood" to become real." And as you point out it won't happen as the result of any one new field discovery. Which should be obvious since individual fields have never been the source of "oil floods". Which is why it's rather silly for someone pointing to a field that will only produce X days of global consumption. It has and always will the cumulative production of hundreds of thousands of individual wells that matters. Even during the great US shale "oil flood" the average well of the 3rd largest oil producing country was less the 20 bopd. Which is why the active rig count is much more meaningful the the size of any newly discovered field. The world doesn't need another N Slope or Deep Water GOM field. It needs TRENDS of new reserves and the economic incentive the drill many tens of thousands of wells over many years to have a significant impact.

Good luck with that, Mr. N Slope and Mr. U.K. LOL

[hvacman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 't')ita - The world doesn't need another N Slope or Deep Water GOM field. It needs TRENDS of new reserves and the economic incentive the drill many tens of thousands of wells over many years to have a significant impact.

Good luck with that, Mr. N Slope and Mr. U.K. LOL

[ROCKMAN]

Hman - "...not the "normal" lay meaning of trend, as in "to extend in a general direction" - but apparently a geological formation or ???". No, that's exactly what "trend" implies. Not that geologists haven't made up words in the past to force others to pay us for an explanation. LOL.

Here's real life example: the Wilcox trend. The Wilcox is a geologic formation (rocks deposited during a specific time interval). The character of the Wilcox rock/reservoir can vary greatly over distance. The Wilcox trend runs "on strike" from interior Mexico (where it has a different name) across Texas, La and Mississippi. It runs in a "dip direction" (which is perpendicular to the strike direction) from a few a couple of hundred miles north of the Texas coast all the way out in the Deep Water play in the GOM. And out there we call it the "Eocene trend" but it's the same age rock as the onshore Wilcox trend.

Clear as mud now, eh? LOL. Actually there are a number of different qualifiers we use with the term trend but that's way to much detail for this site. From a practical matter it's best to use trend to denote production from a similar reservoirs. Usually a collection of "fields" which are geographically unique hydrocarbon accumulations. But can also be production from a formation that isn't confined to individual structural or stratigraphic "traps" with make up "conventional fields". And thus we have the Eagle Ford Shale TREND. And that still isn't easy to follow: as you go east the rocks deposited during EFS time become sandy. And guess what: in that area we call it the Woodbine Sand trend. But guess what: there are still sections that contain shale. Shales some companies have been producing with hz holes. Well, f*ck...what do we call that new " trend" within a trend? Heck, just leave it up to geologists with no imagination...or too much. The commonly used but unofficial name is the Eaglebine trend. One of the first companies trying to turn it into a viable "play" (play: any area someone is trying to make money drilling holes in the ground) is one of the "fathers" of the Eagle Ford Shale play...Petrohawk. But since they sold the company for $12 BILLION (and ran away like a scalded dog) they had to create a new name for the Eaglebine play: Halcon. And where did that name come from? It is a Mexican HAWK. We are a clever bunch of buttholes, ain't we? LOL.

I don't know how much this helps you: there are entire grad school courses focused solely in this subject so impossible to condense it for easy consumption here.

[ROCKMAN]

Yes: we have hundreds of "code words" we use with each other. Yesterday I used the word "turbidite" with Rocdoc. He not only knows what it means but what it confers to the origin of those rocks and the unique hydraulic nature of how those sediments are transported. It would take thousands of words and many pictures/charts to convey the same info to a non-geologist.

I try to avoid using such code words here but have to at times to avoid making grossly misleading statements.

[ROCKMAN]

The coming oil flood...or not. From

http://oilpro.com/post/27778/five-major ... icle_2_txt

What have been the 5 major developments in the first half of 2016:

About 2800 wells were brought online, compared with 6000 in the 1st half of 2015, and 6600 in H1 2014.

Total oil production, after peaking March 2015, is now back at levels close to 2 years earlier, in the summer of 2014.

High activity levels in 2015 were able to hold production quite steady, but in 2016, until June, only about 60% of the legacy decline (740 kbo vs 1200 kbo) was replaced with new production. Still, this is a large number, given that completion levels were less than half compared with the year before.

Wells, on average, increasingly deliver more of their eventual returns early on. This can be clearly seen in the “Well quality” tab, by the higher early peaks in recent years, followed by steeper declines. This higher initial productivity is an important factor behind the previous bullet point. For a somewhat fairer comparison, you can exclude the “Appalachia” and “Other” basins, which contain a high proportion of gas wells.

The number of wells are labelled as spud, but not producing, has been reduced since early 2015 by about 25%. You can see this in the “Well status” tab, if you select the status “2. DUC”. This excludes Texas, for which I don’t have this data.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he costs are going to be high, and the development of this play have to be supported with high enough oil prices.

[ROCKMAN]

"...but it does give some breathing room to sort out renewables in a manner that makes sense..." Breathing that I have no confidence in that the American consumer will take advantage of.

[StarvingLion]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t isn't the deux ex machina some would want but it does give some breathing room to sort out renewables in a manner that makes sense along with oil, natural gas and coal.

[tita]

Rockman - This interactive chart is just a terrific tool to understand how the shale production works and the relationship with rig count. First we can observe how fast inital production fall within a year. Production of the year 2014 was 60% lower a year after. Without any new well addition in 2015, total production (2010-2014) would have fallen by 50% at 2Mbbls/d. But there was around 880 wells addition per month in 2015, which kept production almost steady. But wells addition was not the same through the year. More than 1'000 in the beginning of 2015, less than 700 at the end. Wells addition follow the oil rig count with a 4-6 months lag time. In june 2016, the lowest well addition was recorded since 2010. So, US oil shale prod is due to decrease at least for 6 months as the rig count is still at a level insufficient to replace legacy production depletion. At the end of the year, we can expect US shale oil to produce around 3.3 Mbbls/d which is still not bad.

But to bring back shale oil into the levels of production seen in 2015, we need at least 1'000 wells addition per months and a rig count that can support it. It took 3 years from 2010 to get to that level. And it won't be much faster as all the process has to be rebuild.

[tita]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I')t isn't the deux ex machina some would want but it does give some breathing room to sort out renewables in a manner that makes sense along with oil, natural gas and coal.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;...but it does give some breathing room to sort out renewables in a manner that makes sense..." Breathing that I have no confidence in that the American consumer will take advantage of.

[ROCKMAN]

tita - "But to bring back shale oil into the levels of production seen in 2015, we need at least 1'000 wells addition per months and a rig count that can support it." To put a fine point on that metric: a 350% increase in rig count. And another rough measure: an increase in capex spending of at least $10 billion/year.