[Atlantis]

I have always known it. Now, there is the confirmation: there is no substance to any of the fracking hype. Reserves are far smaller than predicted and the technology is far more polluting than anybody had admitted.

The whole thing will be an economic catastrophe and an environmental disaster.

Next month, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) will publish a new estimate of US shale deposits set to deal a death-blow to industry hype about a new golden era of US energy independence by fracking unconventional oil and gas.

EIA officials told the Los Angeles Times that previous estimates of recoverable oil in the Monterey shale reserves in California of about 15.4 billion barrels were vastly overstated. The revised estimate, they said, will slash this amount by 96% to a puny 600 million barrels of oil.
...
Analysts like Jeremy Leggett have said, citing exaggerated oil industry estimates, that if reserve and production reality are indeed significantly lower than industry forecasts, we could be at risk of an oil shock as early as within the next five years.

The latest revelations follow a spate of bad news for industry reassurances about the fracking boom. New research published this month has found that measured methane leaks from fracking operations were three times larger than forecasted. The US Environment Protection Agency therefore "significantly underestimates" methane emissions from fracking, by as much as a 100 to a 1,000 times according to a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study published in April.

The Associated Press also reported, citing a Government Accountability Office investigation, that the US Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management had failed to adequately inspect thousands of oil and gas wells that are potentially high risk for water and environmental damage.

Read the full story in The Guardian.

[Frollein]

So it was a really brilliant idea to piss off Putin... because we can always rely on American dirty gas
I read somewhere that Poland is considering to allow fracking on its land, are they really this stupid?

[Ummon]

Wait so yo ' re telling me they lied to boost confidence in their business model? Wut?

I wonder how Republicans will find a way to blame this on brown people

[annatar1914]

I have always known it. Now, there is the confirmation: there is no substance to any of the fracking hype. Reserves are far smaller than predicted and the technology is far more polluting than anybody had admitted.

The whole thing will be an economic catastrophe and an environmental disaster.



Read the full story in The Guardian.

I guess I'll be the one to mention the earthquakes Fracking causes. Small ones so far, not a major annoyance yet, but they've become quite common since Fracking in my State began.

[layman]

Is this as bad as it looks :P

I was kinda hoping for some North American oil, here in europe. Russia and the middle east are scary

I am mok in scotland though - we have lots of wind ...

[Social_Critic]

The potential for oil production from the Monterrey shale was a US government estimate most of us in the oil industry felt was a goofy figure. To us, nothing has really changed, the shales continue to have significant GAS and GAS CONDENSATE production potential, and the market will reward those who have a better eye for the better rocks, just like it has always done.

Articles such as you quote from the Guardian are written for enviromentalists who have an anti shale production mania (they call it "fracking"). But this is based on ignorance and it´s more like religion. It has no solid basis.

If you wish me to answer serious questions about the topic I can do so, provided you keep it civil. I´m not interested in teaching people who can´t be polite.

[Atlantis]

I read somewhere that Poland is considering to allow fracking on its land, are they really this stupid?

Yeah, the Poles are crazy about fracking; think it will turn Poland into boom-land. And they love everything that comes from America: American missiles, American fracking, American wars, ... ; if its American it must be good.

Ukraine too will go into fracking big-time, once the political obstacles are out off the way. Exxon and Shell have already multi-billion dollars deals all signed up with the friendly help from Biden & Son.

I was kinda hoping for some North American oil, here in europe. Russia and the middle east are scary

When all is said and done, Russian gas and oil is best. And there are new pipelines under construction bypassing Ukraine.

Wait so yo ' re telling me they lied to boost confidence in their business model? Wut?

Well, lying?! It's just how they do business. You don't get a business going by talking down its potentials.

----------------------------------------

Here is the latest from the UK gas fracking front. It looks like they didn't differentiate between total reserves and recoverable reserves.

Government hopes that Britain can emulate the US by starting a shale-gas revolution have been knocked back after a long-awaited report unexpectedly concluded there was no potential in fracking for gas in the Weald region of southern England.

Michael Fallon, the energy minister, insisted he was neither "disappointed nor happy" at the findings from the British Geological Survey and denied the government had hyped the potential for extracting shale gas in Britain.

He preferred to focus on more positive BGS findings that there could be 4.4bn barrels of oil in the shale rocks of the area, which stretches from Salisbury to Tunbridge Wells – although in practice recoverable reserves are likely to be a fraction of this.
...
But the BGS conclusion that "there is unlikely to be any shale-gas potential" in the Weald area is a major blow to ministers' wider hopes that shale could be found throughout the country.
...
But a business lobby group said the government should not miss out on this opportunity, although it warned that investment in hydrocarbon projects was in short supply.

Dan Lewis, energy policy adviser at the Institute of Directors, said: "It's clear that there are significant reserves of shale gas and oil in the UK, and these new estimates must prompt the government to act quickly to unleash the fracking industry. The only way we will know exactly how much gas and oil can be recovered is by allowing more exploration."

If they drill long enough, they'll end up with finding something.

Read the full story in the Guardian.

provided you keep it civil

Have I been uncivil then? The Guardian has a critical view on many things, that doesn't mean its wrong. And as to the view from the shale/fracking industries, I don't think we should take it as gospel since their self-interest is a factor that cannot be denied.

Anyways, what then is the industry view? In regard to recoverable reserves? At what price level? At what cost? Environmental? Water? etc.? What about the view that some should stay in the ground if we want to keep the climate from going haywire?

[Social_Critic]

Atlantis, I wrote I required civility because I can go in "seminar mode" but only if this remains civil. Given your positive attitude, lets dig into the subject...

The Guardian articles tend to be superficial, slanted, and have a fairly low quality. However, if that's your source, we can deal with it straight up.

The oil and gas business involves production of hydrocarbons from rocks located underground. This means the ability to produce requires a lot of work before commerciality has been established. This includes obtaining geophysical data, drilling exploratory wells, and producing them to test the rock properties. Shales are a very low quality rock (they lack permeability), and the industry still lacks the experience to correlate rock samples and geophysical data to producibility with confidence.

Therefore, there's no certainty the shales under Great Britain can be produced commercially. There's also little knowledge about the actual volumes. To obtain this information they require time and will have to drill and produce several dozen wells.

All the objections posted in articles in the Guardian can be dealt with to some extent. The British public has to decide whether the activities are worthwhile, but this can't be done until the above mentioned exploratory wells are drilled and tested. Notice I write to some extent, because it ought to be clear that drilling wells does involve disturbing the surface, it requires material transport, causes traffic, and if regulations aren't adequate they can also be noisy and disturb the aborigines.

When the guardian publishes articles about this or that set of rocks having less potential, it means absolutely nothing. This is to be expected. And eventually you may find there's very little potential. On the other hand it may develop into a nice little side business which generates employment and allows you to reduce gas imports.

[Lexington]

Reserves are far smaller than predicted

EIA officials told the Los Angeles Times that previous estimates of recoverable oil in the Monterey shale reserves in California of about 15.4 billion barrels were vastly overstated. The revised estimate, they said, will slash this amount by 96% to a puny 600 million barrels of oil.

The revision you bolded is on just one shale deposit, not the entire US or planet.

So, respectfully, concluding that "reserves are far smaller than predicted" is kind of a spurious conclusion.

[Social_Critic]

Lexington, the Monterrey did have a significant chunk of the overall shale oil reserves. However as I wrote above the industry experts (including yours truly) thought those Monterrey resource estimates were bullshit.

The main products to be produced from shales are natural gas and the associated gas condensates. There's a very simple reason: gas has a much lower viscosity and higher compressibility. These are the key properties hydrocarbons must have to flow from those shitty low permeability shales.

What the guardian and other media do is expose the ignorance of their correspondents. However, this is understandable, if they knew better they would be petroleum engineers and earn a much higher salary

[Allerton]

You work in fracing SC?

[Decky]

Oh god here it comes.

[Social_Critic]

You work in fracing SC?

No. I'm consulting partime, mostly with oil companies. In my earlier life I spent sometime supervising technical teams which did carry out hydraulic fracturing. I also supervised engineers preparing coupled geomechanics and dynamic reservoir computer models (we used CMG's software). I also have knowledge about the industry from the landowners point of view. This is quite common if you have property in Texas.

It you look at a Monterrey cross section with posted logs and understand the basins history it's easy to conclude those hydrocarbons leaked, were produced, or the horizontal leg is too busted up. I think Intek was smoking crack when they signed off on that report.

Decky, I left a roll of toilet paper on your desk.

[Allerton]

Then it's time to get with the times. New tech is being produced all the time that greatly increases the recoverability of hydrocarbons from reserves. Hell, up in the Duvernay they're re-drilling and acid fracing in areas that were thought to be "unrecoverable" not even ten years ago.

[quetzalcoatl]

The potential for oil production from the Monterrey shale was a US government estimate most of us in the oil industry felt was a goofy figure. To us, nothing has really changed, the shales continue to have significant GAS and GAS CONDENSATE production potential, and the market will reward those who have a better eye for the better rocks, just like it has always done.

Articles such as you quote from the Guardian are written for enviromentalists who have an anti shale production mania (they call it "fracking"). But this is based on ignorance and it´s more like religion. It has no solid basis.

If you wish me to answer serious questions about the topic I can do so, provided you keep it civil. I´m not interested in teaching people who can´t be polite.

Okay, here's a question, and it's serious...at least in south Texas.

Enormous fracking vehicles have utterly destroyed farm to market roads here. Counties do not have the money necessary to restore them to their former state - the money involved exceeds the entire budget of these rural counties. County officials have decided to convert them to gravel roads. Needless to say, the level of anger here towards these companies and state officials is enormous.

Incidentally, the promise of jobs was a big pack of lies. Travelling crews are boarded in camps - they come and go without spending much of anything in the local economy.

[mum]

Okay, here's a question, and it's serious...at least in south Texas.

Enormous fracking vehicles have utterly destroyed farm to market roads here. Counties do not have the money necessary to restore them to their former state - the money involved exceeds the entire budget of these rural counties. County officials have decided to convert them to gravel roads. Needless to say, the level of anger here towards these companies and state officials is enormous.

Incidentally, the promise of jobs was a big pack of lies. Travelling crews are boarded in camps - they come and go without spending much of anything in the local economy.

I'm not sure what the actual question was but if the government was in the business of protecting property rights this would simply not be a problem. The mining companies would be made to restore the roads.
People should stop believing what the companies are telling them about jobs.

[Social_Critic]

Okay, here's a question, and it's serious...at least in south Texas.

Enormous fracking vehicles have utterly destroyed farm to market roads here. Counties do not have the money necessary to restore them to their former state - the money involved exceeds the entire budget of these rural counties. County officials have decided to convert them to gravel roads. Needless to say, the level of anger here towards these companies and state officials is enormous.

Incidentally, the promise of jobs was a big pack of lies. Travelling crews are boarded in camps - they come and go without spending much of anything in the local economy.

Hell, what do you expect in South Texas? I have property North East of Dallas, we got drilling pads in the area, and the county enforces truck weight regulations. Our experience shows you have to get really hard nosed over the truck weight issue. Also you have to insist they pretty up the well pads, and for God´s sake make sure they sound proof the compressors. Having worked for oil companies I can certify the local managers are all sons of bitches who have to meet a budget, and they don´t give a hoot about the local population as long as it stays quiet.

However, the answer isn´t to stand around holding signs. You got to get into the county commission and scare the hell out of them. Vote them out of office and so on. Or at least make sure they run graders over the roads once a week (otherwise they get that washboard pattern and your car suspension gets shot to hell).

Also, regarding the jobs issue, the drilling phase is temporary. If you want to educate yourself for a job in the business, and you don´t have an engineering degree, I suggest you get an electrician´s license and study cathodic protection. They are putting a ton of steel in the ground and in flowlines, it has to be kept from rusting, and local people who know how to maintain a cathodic protection system will have a good paying job for many years.

[OllytheBrit]

I have always known it. Now, there is the confirmation: there is no substance to any of the fracking hype. Reserves are far smaller than predicted and the technology is far more polluting than anybody had admitted.

The whole thing will be an economic catastrophe and an environmental disaster.

Will somebody tell the British government please? They're obsessed with it! I've tried to, by asking searching and salient questions, but they just ignore me! I can't believe anyone with an IQ into double figures thought it was feasible in the first place.

[Atlantis]

When the guardian publishes articles about this or that set of rocks having less potential, it means absolutely nothing. This is to be expected. And eventually you may find there's very little potential. On the other hand it may develop into a nice little side business which generates employment and allows you to reduce gas imports.

Thanks for your comments. My late reply is not due to lack of civility but due to lack of Internet access.

Leaving aside the technical details, I don't see how your comments invalidate the Guardian article. The way I understand it is that the Guardian points to the fact that certain fracking projects have far less potential than is claimed by the fracking lobby. Your comments seem to confirm this. From there, it is reasonable to assume that this applies to other fracking projects too since nobody starts a business by downplaying its potential. Thus, the projections (hype) of the industry needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Basically, I'm opposed to fracking in Europe on common sense grounds, but wouldn't advocate a total stop:

- The full extend of environmental damages or disruption to local communities will only become clear at a later stage.
- Europe is too densely populated for taking risks with the ground water or the environment.
- The projected benefits are likely exaggerated.
- We don't loose anything by leaving it in the ground for another 10 or 20 years.
- If the technology proves save by then, we can use a proven and cheaper technology to start exploitation then.
- With new oil and gas reserves coming onto the market, the price is likely to fall in the coming decade. Later exploitation may result in higher earnings.
- Economies developing innovative technologies are preferable to economies depending fossil fuel exploration. While in theory the two don't exclude each other, actual example show that dependence on fossil fuel exploration often comes at the expense of innovation in other fields. For example, Norway's manufacturers have a hard time competing because the currency too expensive due to the fuel exports.

In the end the voters will have to decide.

In the UK Fracking push gets go-ahead across UK as ministers tighten safeguards