The real jaw dropper in the study looking at USA oil production today, performance is dropping at a precipitous rate, and the shale plays, again the average well performance is declining at a really concerning rate. The unconventional plays bought us about a decade, a decade and a half. …
Effectively, nobody’s loaning oil companies money. …
The best forward strategy for humanity and the earth is for humans to use less energy. …
We have over drilled it. We have drilled our wells too close together. … The wells are cannibalizing one another’s production. …
Part of the reason that investors don’t want to give these shale companies anymore money is because their view is that those guys destroyed a lot of capital over the last decade…but the first strike against them was “We’ve given you money for a decade and you haven’t made us any decent return, so we’re not going to give you any more money.”
These companies have a history of doing things that are not good for investor returns. …
We need to decrease our consumption of all energy…to stop destroying the ecosystem of the planet from which we get all our wealth. …
Art Berman
The slurping sound is upon us.
Nate Hagens
***
Above are my favourite statements by Mr. Berman in his interview below. No wonder industry’s chasing $billions from taxpayers via Carbon Capture and Sequestration, which industry knows doesn’t work.
A decade in exchange for all those evil lies; all that leaking and migrating methane worsening the climate crisis; radioactive toxic waste industry keeps failing at treating and spreads/dumps on public roads and farmland turning it into Hell’s Acres; permanently lost or contaminated water; exploding private and municipal water wells, homes and community water reservoirs injuring or killing workers, citizens, pets and families; illegally frac’d aquifers; endless bribes and cruel Synergy leading to invaded, divided and conquered communities; toxic air, land and food; destroyed public infrastructure, including roads and bridges; rapes and STD’s; bought and corrupted politicians, lawyers, judges and regulator staff; health harmed families and cancers with doctors not allowed to treat citizens harmed by frac’ers without political permission (FFS!?); earthquakes and destroyed homes and businesses (how many dams compromised?); worker and citizen (including kids), pets, livestock and wildlife deaths and injuries; endless gag orders (NDAs); $billions lost for investors and banks – for a decade?
Was it worth it? No!
Think how much further ahead humans would be had the world say “NO!” to frac’ers like the city of Calgary and Lethbridge did!
Arthur Berman: “Shale Oil and the Slurping Sound” 1:30:27 Min. December 13, 2023, by The Great Simplification #101
On this episode, Arthur Berman returns to unpack the complexity underpinning the oil trends of the last 75 years and what new data can tell us about availability in the coming years. After decades of declining oil production in the United States, the past decade of rising oil extraction has eased many worries about peak oil. But the past few years of continued growth have been obtained by using “a larger straw”, merely delaying the inevitability of the depletion of a finite resource. Art presents recent data on well productivity in US shale plays indicating we are much closer to ‘the slurping sound’. How does technology hide the declining availability of oil reserves, causing us to extract and use them faster without creating any new resources? Going beyond geology, how do geopolitics, finance, and social opinion affect oil availability? Where do we go when economically viable oil isn’t available anymore – and will we have the prudence to make the cultural shifts necessary before we have no other options? Have we now passed ‘peak oil’?
About Arthur Berman: Arthur E. Berman is a petroleum geologist with 36 years of oil and gas industry experience. He is an expert on U.S. shale plays and is currently consulting for several E&P companies and capital groups in the energy sector.
For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.co…
00:00 – Episode highlight
00:33 – Guest introduction
06:38 – Art’s new research findings
13:49 – What is well performance?
17:48 – New high production leads to faster depletion
20:02 – Do oil and gas companies need money for drilling and upstream investment?
23:00 – History of U.S. Production of shale
26:48 – What do we drill next after tight oil?
29:56 – Tight oil peak before COVID and recent peak
33:26 – Are there other tight oil areas? Or will we try to do oil shale?
36:15 – Graph of the production of different types of oil
40:53 – What do we do about our financial claims once energy starts to decline?
41:59 – Is the U.S. aggressive in current conflicts because we do have abundance of oil?
44:45 – Over drilling and cannibalizing wells
53:11 – Rig count
1:03:50 – How much would oil executives and US Energy, ENP experts agree with Art and where would they disagree?
1:05:04 – What will production be in the future?
1:10:07 – What are the potential outcomes?
1:12:02 – Importance of lowering usage
1:15:39 – Why is the U.S. experiment unlikely to be repeated as a global extension of oil supply in the coming decade?
1:19:19 – How could AI change our energy future?
1:22:25 – Should AI coordinate the oil drilling so that we don’t cannibalize the wells?
1:25:05 – Final thoughts
1:28:07 – Future topics
***
@mwgilmore9953:
Art and Nate shouldn’t apologize for their 2005 call of peak oil; they were right, conventional oil peaked. Our investment group called the Bakken Peak in 2019; Eagle ford is getting there now. Yes, the mighty Permian is still growing, but the “Red Queen” catches all who oppose her eventually (legacy well collapsing production vs. new IP). We follow all the major shale players in the U.S., look at Devon 10Q data, lot’s of CapEx just to standstill (running ever faster just to keep production flat).
@mikebendzela4217:
Art Berman: “AI is not going to change the geology of planet Earth.”
Colin Campbell: “You can’t eat the Internet.”
@FromShetoMe:
Always appreciate hearing from Art. Unfortunately, energy blindness will continue to the end.
As Art pointed out, even when we see it behind us, we will still be blind to it and blame the troubles on “those people,” whoever they are. Just as we are blind to human overshoot.
@treefrog3349:
“To the end” says it all. That presumption, as realistic as it now is, is self-inflicted. The Earth proceeded quite nicely without us for BILLIONS of years. Humans, and humans alone upset an ancient balance that will never be restored. …
@Twisted_Cabage:
By far, Art is my favorite guest. He seems to be the least addicted to hopium and the single most realistic and grounded guest you have on. Keep bringing him back.
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