Subjectivist wrote:Isn't your argument predicated on the idea that drilling sites for fracked oil are extremely abundant and allow an arbitrarily unlimited resource at $100/bbl?
Define "abundant". There are plenty of locations, yes, and I'm sure we could back calculate out how many from some sort of EIA work or another how many there are. But they are not infinite. And there is no unlimited resource at $100/bbl, there might just be more of the same resource, depending on how far off the sweetspots companies can still go and make money at that price. Alternatively, what the performance of infill wells might be, the more of them, the worse the expected per well results, but they would bring in more resources as well.
Subjectivist wrote:You keep posting about how easy it is to increase production a million or more barrels a day as if depketion doesn't matter and we can keep drilling for as long as we need to do so.
It is easy to increase production. The US just demonstrated it on a national scale. But just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it can be done forever, and it doesn't mean other nations can do it like the US did.
Drill baby drill doesn't have anything infinite sitting behind it...sooner or later...there is an end. This is about the only axiomatic part of Hubbert's work that will never change, and it applies to resource plays the same as it does discrete reservoirs.
But the question is WHEN, hopefully using methods that aren't just slapping all decline, all the time equations on current production rates and imitating Harold Camping every time it doesn't work out because your method stinks.
subjectivist wrote:Meanwhile here in Ohio they drill a fair number of Utica shale wells aiming for wet gas that provides lots of natural gas liquids plus methane for the dry gas market. But they only drill in a few counties because the special conditions that formed wet tas only happened in a limited geographic area.
Wet gas isn't the only valuable commodity in the Appalachian Basin, or in the Utica or Marcellus. And the geologic conditions for the Marcellus stretch over extensive areas, same as the Utica, but productivity within a given area varies. Companies go after high value first. Fortunately for them, sooner or later the proven true forever axiom kicks in, and the acreage that wasn't particularly economic at $2/mcf might be wildly so at $6/mcf.
subjectivist wrote: Everything I have read on the topic says most of the fracked wells in Ohio will be gas with a very little light oil and some wet gas. It won't matter if WTI is $200/bbl because the viable drilling locations run out faster and faster the higher the price goes.
The Marcellus and Utica aren't oil plays. Liquids have a nice secondary phase economic kick to them, but that isn't the main game in town. It should also be noted that these types of resource plays, named "continuous" by the USGS, have an interesting characteristic that works against your idea of it only being in a few counties.
Geologic Nature of Continuous
Accumulations..Page 2, 2nd paragraph in left columnusgs wrote:Common production characteristics include a large in-place petroleum volume, low recovery factor, absence of truly dry holes, dependence on fracture permeability, and sweet spots within the accumulation that have generally better production characteristics but where individual wells still have serendipitous “hit or miss” production characteristics.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."
Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"