There is a lot of gloom and doom on the US fracking industry in the blogosphere, some of which SLL has featured. However, a more optimistic view is gaining currency. It may be because the price of oil has improved by $20 per barrel. SLL views that as a dead cat bounce and ultimately oil will take out its recent lows, but here’s SSS at theburningplatform.com with the more upbeat take on oil pricing and fracking:
Good news for frackers.
In mid-May 2015, domestic oil production increased by 300,000 bbl/day over the past 3 months to a grand total of 9.6 million bbl/day. This total domestic production is the highest it’s been since 1970, when domestic oil production started a long, 35 year slide to just under 5 million bbl/day in 2005.
In the 10 years since, the U.S. has added over 4.6 million bbl/day to its production, and fracking has accounted for 90% of that increase. For the math challenged, that’s 4.14 million bbl/day.
So why is domestic oil production increasing when so many predicted a death knell for the fracking industry as the global PRICE of oil plummeted from $110 a barrel to its current level of $60. It’s because the fracking companies still standing can profit from $60 a barrel and not the “conventional wisdom” that they need the global price of oil to remain at or above $80-85 a barrel. Several factors are in play.
—-Half of the NEW fracking wells started in September 2014 have been idled. Lower cost to the companies in energy consumed, equipment purchased or leased, and jobs required.
—-100,000 workers laid off. Huge savings to the companies in labor costs.
—-Less productive wells idled. Production at the best wells ramped up. Yes, this will deplete these wells even faster, but the companies have already identified promising replacements through …….
—-Skyrocketing technology in horizontal drilling, which can now burrow its way through the earth up to 15,000 feet using seismic imaging and a host of other breakthroughs to find what they’re looking for: huge amounts of recoverable oil. And the technology is working very, very well.
—-Bankruptcies. Sorry about the jobs lost or idled, but that’s how destructive capitalism works. The companies left standing are snapping up oil leases and idled equipment at fire sale prices, and …..
—-Institutional investors are watching closely. And they like what they see and have poured over $20 billion into the fracking companies in the past few months. This is precisely the OPPOSITE of what occurred in 1986 when the domestic oil industry collapsed and the banks and investors stampeded to the exits.
—-Finally, a coup de grace has been delivered to the radical environmental groups who have been fighting fracking for years based on spurious allegations that fracking threatens under ground water sources. Two days ago, the EPA released a multi-year study costing nearly $50 million dollars that it does not. The EPA study did not reveal ONE SINGLE INSTANCE of fracking fluids which compromised under ground water. Not one.
Fracking for oil is safe and critical to the economy and national security. Critical. I challenge the anti-frackers who have read these comments to present any case which refutes my analysis and firm support of the fracking industry. It will survive, and it will prosper. Greatly to the nation’s and individual’s benefit.
And I invite Admin to go first.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/06/06/sss-schools-admin-on-fracking/
Hydraulic fracturing isn’t really a new technology,it’s the fracking combined with horizontal drilling that made the difference.
Back in 1978,a gas well drilled on property we hunt in a little town called Prosperity Pa.,which is just outside Washington Pa. was fracked,then the wells drilled on a relative’s farm were fracked in the mid 80’s-said relative made enough $$$ off the wells,and selling 200 or so of the 320 acres he owned to retire comfortably.
The oil industry has always been boom/bust,with those who survive the price drops scarfing up equipment and leases for pennies on the dollar.