I agree with DOE Secretary Chris Wright - terminology matters. At a time when it is more important than it's ever been to discuss issues that affect everyone I keep seeing more and more jargon. The finance bros have been working overtime to create their own language around concepts that take more than 1 acronym or 2 words to explain. And of course, if you don't "follow" and "like" the comments you won't be up to speed on the latest buzzwords.
This one is from Art's latest - Peak Plateau. I'm too tired to try and figure out if this is his version of explaining how US oil "dominance" can continue even if oil production doesn't, so I'll post it here and hope somebody understands this better than I do. It looks like a "yes, it looks like Permian production really will peak in 2025 after all, but for reasons the party will keep going for at least until 2028? No explanation of what price it would take or how much drilling would have to happen though.
I get denial - no one likes to hear something that means having to change your career, your investments, or your mind because it's a lot of work to make it up in the first place. But if you can imagine a case where things could really go wrong, the odds aren't zero, and it makes sense to hedge. That's what insurance is for.
Peak plateau with fracking oil? Good luck with that! The World is already on a bumpy plateau with serious consequences. If US enters a plateau then the World enters decline, this will have serious ramifications. No economy can keep tight oil on a plateau at current production rates of 13Mbarrels/day, if there will be some sort of plateau for US it will be well below that level.
Thanks so much for these posts - unless something happens to radically change how much of the resource can ultimately be recovered it's very hard to reach the conclusion this shows. Especially since the number of wells would need to double and we already have no idea how to manage the water or navigate spacing for what's being drilled now, at least at current prices.
What I'm seeing in the mainstream press is hopium, because the alternatives aren't something "we" want to hear. Not common sense or realistic discussions. We're walking the same path China's already gone down because they don't have the oil and gas reserves we do. They did "all the above" - managing how they buy oil to get the best deals, building nukes, solar, wind, and buying coal like crazy. We're lucky to have the domestic reserves that we do but sending them overseas instead of using them to give us time to build nukes and figure out what to do with coal just doesn't make sense. Someone pointed out they were at a power industry conference and the majors didn't send anyone other than their renewables and low carbon teams. Could that be a sign that they aren't seeing "abundant, affordable" natural gas forever? Or, that they know the buyers will come to them and have to pay whatever they want to get the juice?
I'm working it....
Thanks for the references to this paper Mike. I r
ead it. Bottom line the first 55ish thousand wells would recover 250,000 barrels oil apiece, the next 55,000 wells will recover 360,000 barrels apiece according to the authors. When you base the next half on the first half it's kind of hard to square... at least to me. But the core is still 32 billion barrels- we are damn near halfway there. I don't believe the tail will look anything like as steep as what they project. Jim Brooker