[Pops]

So what is the word on the Global Frac-athon?

We had a thread a couple of years ago about the USGS reporting shale oil was everywhere, and the EIA said 345 billion barrels in '13, but how much has come online?

From about a year ago:

The hydraulic fracturing of shale in search of oil and gas has hardly started outside the U.S., but that’s changing. A record 400 shale wells may be drilled beyond U.S. borders in 2014, with most of the activity in China and Russia, according to energy consultants Wood Mackenzie. (In contrast, thousands of shale wells will be drilled in the U.S. next year.) The number of rigs used onshore in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region has increased 10 percent over the past year, data compiled by oil services company Baker Hughes (BHI) show. Most of those rigs are meant for shale. “It’s likely there will be a revolution,” says Maria van der Hoeven, executive director at the Paris-based International Energy Agency. “But not everywhere at the same time. And you just can’t copy the U.S. experience.”

I'm not finding a lot. I'm not even finding where low price has killed projects elsewhere and that is always good for a story.

Come on people! Chop, chop; depletion never sleeps!

.

[coffeeguyzz]

As per yesterday, Gazprom announced oil flows from all four directional wells into the Bazhenov. Horizontal drilling is planned in the coming months.
The Fuling field has produced about 100MMcf gas which is not a large amount in itself. However, the 100 or so wells Sinopec has drilled seems to have enabled it to 'crack the code' (which has been the protocol for virtually all the successful shale fields). Inasmuch as they are now ramping up with pad drilling and the associated infrastructure buildout, there is the potential to show a quintupling of output in a few year's time.
The Dead Cow is startin' to moo down Argie way with - once again- superficially unimpressive initial output, but the parameters are being identified and implemented to ultimately produce from the second largest shale gas formation on the planet.
Perhaps the most significant - albeit unrecognized - data from the shale industry was Thursday's announcement from Whiting that they would continue to drill and frac new Bakken wells despite the horrendously low WTI pricing. Whiting's suits claim they can operate profitably mainly due to the exceptional advances in fracturing technology, having the total cost of drilling/fracturing being in the $6/$6 1/2 million dollar range.
While this writer is surprised at Whiting's decision, those of us uber-cornucopians are aware of several innovations, especially the Coil Tubing conveyed Bottom Hole Assembly Tools that are on the cusp of revolutionizing the frac'ing process.
Should Whiting prove successful, companies worldwide will have a model with a proven track record with which to emulate.
Chop chop.

[ROCKMAN]

The world is certainly full of shales: they are by far the most common sedimentary rock. But shales do not produce oil: only shales that have undergone a very specific geologic and thermal history are capable of commercially producing oil. Such as the Bakken and Eagle Ford. But there are dozens of other US shale formations that have been penetrated by hundreds of thousands of wells over the years. And while some have yielded an amount of commercial oil the Bakken and EFS still account for the vast majority of oil from US shales. Consider the EFS averages just 250' thick in the prime target area. Yet in the same area there are a number of other shale formations immediately above and below the EFS with a combined thickness exceeding 10,000' that have been penetrated by thousands of wells. And some have produced oil. But obviously not very noteworthy: without searching the net who can name some of those shale formations?

Some foreign shales may prove to be major oil producers IN THE FUTURE. But predicting any volume based just on the abundance of those shales is ridiculous IMHO. In another 10+ years and 100,000 wells drilled and produced we might be able to start making an educated guess. After all, look at the perpetual debates over how much oil the EFS will ultimately recover. And we know more about it then all the foreign shales combined.

[coffeeguyzz]

Edit: Above Fuling number should have been 100 billion cubic feet (BCF) not 100 million (MM).

[ROCKMAN]

No one can predict the future potential of foreign shale formations. So yes: the world is full of shales...they are by far the most common sedimentary rock. Just as they are in the US. The big difference is that thousands of wells have tested dozens of shale formations in the US with tecoveries coming no where close to the Bakken and EFS. Those two formations account for more than 80% of oil production from US shales. Consider just the EFS: the average thickness is 250 ft across the most commonly targeted portions of the play. Immediately above and below the EFS, in the same area where it's so prolific, are several other shale formations with a cumulative thickness of more than 10,000'. Formations that have been penetrated by many tens of thousands of wells. Can anyone name them without searching the net?

[coffeeguyzz]

Evenin', Rock. Don't know if this will show as a duplicate post (first one disappeared), hope all is well with you.
I cheated and googled the EFS stratigraphy. Recognized some, didn't realize the thickness was so extensive.
Although this is a foreign focused post, the number of potential plays popping up in this country is kinda like wack-a-mole.
Rogersville in eastern Kentucky, Chainman in Nevada.
Scamsters may have a field day.
Interesting times.

[ROCKMAN]

Coffee - Despite what sounded like pessimism on the potential volume of oil from foreign shales I suspect it probably significant. What I'm most pessimistic about is the lack of a global oil patch with the capabilities and, more important, the financial incentive of the US oil patch. For instance NOC's don't have stock they're trying to hype.

[rockdoc123]

There are a few places where shale exploration trundles along internationally. Argentina is one where it seems to be accelerating, Chevron, Exxon, Petronas are a few of the bigger ones who have joined up with YPF to explore the Vaca Muerta and Los Mojes trends. These shales really do make anything in North America look pathetic from a geologic standpoint but the facilities and infrastructure that makes fracking economic in North America doesn't exist there so development will be slow. Some pretty good wells so far though.

There has been a few companies chasing the shale plays in Australia, some in the Cooper Eromanga basin and some in the older basins to the north. Really nothing to jump up and down about at this point from what I can tell. A couple of companies went out of business as I remember but that was due to undercapitalization if memory serves.

People continue to plug away at shales in Europe. France was a hot bed for a short period until the fracking ban. Poland looked interesting but the rocks generally seem to be too plastic in their behavior to make good fracable reservoir. There is drilling in all sorts of places like Spain and Romania and Hungary just not a lot of success to this point in time.

There is some recent activity chasing shales in some of the northern basins in Colombia but that exploration is in its infancy.

Lots of talk about the shale potential in Mexico and CNH (the regulatory body) has announced a shale bid round for mid 2015. Basically chasing the Eagleford Shale equivalent in the Burgos basin and in east central Mexico. There is some talk that this bid round will be postponed due to the low commodity prices.

One that nobody hears about that apparently keeps trundling along is Algeria. Sonatrach was actually early to the party fracking the Devonian shales back when shale wasn't all that big a deal in the US. They don't announce anything but I'm lead to believe they have a few shale developments on the go in the Oued Mya basin and the Berkine.

[ROCKMAN]

And beyond the technical recoverability and the economic analysis there maybe a very big hurdle for foreign shales: caped limitations. Consider this report from the WSJ of the borrowed capex the US oil patch used to fund our "shale boom":

"American oil and gas companies have gone heavily into debt during the energy boom, increasing their borrowings by 55% since 2010, to almost $200 billion. Their need to service that debt helps explain why U.S. producers plan to continue pumping oil even as crude trades for less than $50 a barrel."

So let's be very optimistic and say there's 3X the foreign shale plays as just the EFS and Bakken. If so foreign operators will need to dish out upwards of 1/2 $TRILLION to duplicate the US success. So where will that capex come from? Borrowed? Not very likely now given current oil prices. In fact some lenders are resisting refinancing the proven US shale players.

And even when prices recover significantly the international lenders will likely not forget the $BILLIONS that may be lost by the US oil patch lenders. Even one of the more promising plays, the Canadian Durveynay, appears to need oil prices similar to those that brought about the US shale boom. For the moment, given some rather huge hurdles, we might want to table any enthusiasm about the THEORETICAL foreign shales plays until we some radical changes in the current dynamics.

The foreign shales may have their day but I seriously doubt it just around the corner.