[Ulenspiegel]

@kublaikhan

"Also keep in mind that world GDP growth Not = US/Europe GDP growth. Europe's GDP growth rate has been fluttering around 0% for some time now while the world GDP growth rate is over 2%. The world hit 4% GDP growth in 2010 while the US was half that."

Here you maintain an interesting self-deception: If you factored in the population increase and raining of credit then you would find, that the USA has run on a per capita base a negative GDP growth for years, in contrast some European countries- inside and outside the EURO zone- did much better. (+2% GDP with 6% debt increase is not better than 0.7% growth with 0 debt increase ).

The minimum you should do is to discuss seperate subgroups of the European union seperately, you could learn something you miss at the moment.

These aspects and their correlation with crude prices are often dicussed in a useful way on the Econbrowser, where people like Steven Kopits or Prof. Hamilton contribute really interesting arguments which are usually much deeper than the stuff Gail can offer, who has the unfortunate tendency to argue too much with weak assumptions.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ulenspiegel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '&')quot;Also keep in mind that world GDP growth Not = US/Europe GDP growth. Europe's GDP growth rate has been fluttering around 0% for some time now while the world GDP growth rate is over 2%. The world hit 4% GDP growth in 2010 while the US was half that."

[Ulenspiegel]

@kublikhan

The issue is that we have countries in Europe that are neither in the EU nor the EUR-zone, some do better than the USA, other do worse.

We have countries in the EU, which are not in the EURO-zone, some do better than the USA, other do worse.

We have countries that are in the EU and EURO-zone, other do worse.

A discussion of Europe (which is more than the EU ) as an avarage is IMHO useless. And a disclaimer: I do not claim that the EURO-zone as a whole is in better shape than the US economy, quite contrary.

A good new contribution to the shale oil discussion on the Econbrowser:

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/201 ... ey_fr.html

Here I would like to point to the comments of Steven Kopits (and J. Brown) in the discussion section.

If you are interested in a more academic discussion of shale oil/gas, then I would suggest ASPO: http://www.peakoil.net/

Here the article of K Aleklett on shale gas is quite interesting: http://www.peakoil.net/headline-news/ba ... y-downhill

Or the work of The University of Texas, he referenced to: http://www.utexas.edu/news/2013/02/28/n ... ough-2030/

It supplements the bleak picture in respect to shale gas and rises the ugly question whether Kopits may be correct in respect to shale oil, i.e. is the shale oil industry in a downward spiral?

[ROCKMAN]

“…is the shale oil industry in a downward spiral?”. The smart ass response would be that if it isn’t on a downward spiral exactly how is it different then every other play in the history of the oil patch? The Eagle Ford Shale is as good an example as any other trend: high oil prices have caused the trend to boom. Every well drilled reduces the number of future wells that could be drilled. At current prices (both for oil and the cost to drill) there are X wells that can be drilled in this geographically finite trend. So every 1,000 wells drilled reduces the number of future wells that could be drilled by 1,000. Characterize this as a “spiral down” or not the dynamic is the same: decreasing future potential. The other dynamic each shale trend will experience is that the better wells are typically drilled first just as the bigger fields are typically discovered early on. As time passes field size and per well recover decreases...always has. And always will IMHO.

Of course there’s always the potential for new shale trends to be discovered. Which is why in recent years dozens of other shale trends in the US have been evaluated with frac’d horizontal wells. But currently more than 80% of unconventional shale production still comes from just 2 formations in a few dozen counties. One might argue that the search for new shale trends has also “spiralled down” significantly.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ulenspiegel', 'T')he issue is that we have countries in Europe that are neither in the EU nor the EUR-zone, some do better than the USA, other do worse.

We have countries in the EU, which are not in the EURO-zone, some do better than the USA, other do worse.

We have countries that are in the EU and EURO-zone, other do worse.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '
')Of course there’s always the potential for new shale trends to be discovered. Which is why in recent years dozens of other shale trends in the US have been evaluated with frac’d horizontal wells. But currently more than 80% of unconventional shale production still comes from just 2 formations in a few dozen counties. One might argue that the search for new shale trends has also “spiralled down” significantly.

[ROCKMAN]

So true John. That's why I emphasized "new shale trends". The Wolfcamp Shale and it's equivalents have been toyed with for decades just like the Bakken and EFS. Just took those high oil prices to get them cooking. Just took a while for the MSM to catch on to the WS. I was first approached about drilling hz in the WS more than 3 years ago. For us non-shale drillers it would have just been an acreage flip deal but couldn't come to acceptable terms even then.

Found this tidbit:

"In another announcement, Pioneer said it agreed to sell to China's Sinochem Petroleum a 40 percent stake in 207,000 Wolfcamp Shale acres in West Texas for $1.7 billion, including $500 million in cash at closing and $1.2 billion in future development costs over six years. Sinochem gets about 82,800 net acres in the Wolfcamp and deeper formations, while Pioneer retains shallower prospects. The companies plan to drill 86 horizontal Wolfcamp Shale wells this year, 120 wells in 2014 and 165 wells in 2015. The deal should close in the second quarter."

That's giving up a big chunk of oil potential but $1.7 billion isn't chump change either. OTOH the WS isn't producing a significant amount of oil...yet. But the Permian has always been a great playground...when oil/NG prices were high enough.