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"We therefore forecast gas production will rise 10bn cubic feet a day over that time period (through 2028), along with 0.6 mb/d of NGL growth. That works out to 2.7 mb/d when converted to oil equivalent output in terms of energy content. In other words, the 3 mb/d talked about by Bessent is realistically 3 mb/d of oil equivalent a day — with the “oil equivalents” doing most of the work."
I don't know if Bessent means 3 MM BOPD or BOEPD; politicians can be very stupid. They can also be very decietful and maybe he did mean BOE. If so they author is correct, at 6 MCF to 1 BO it won't take very much for the list of major U.S. oil producers to get to 3 MM BOE as gassy as the areas are they are drilling in. Remember, in the Delaware Basin and much of the Midland Basin, where Exxon is King, gas now represents half the production stream.
Of the companies listed below five of the seven are primarily in the Delaware Basin, save Exxon which is also in
Eddy County trying to make purse out of that pigs ear.
What is always left out of the argument about whether the U.S. can grow production like Trump says is profitability and where the money is going to come from. At $70 WTI and
<$1 WaHa gas prices the Permian tight oil sector is treading water.
Mergers and acquisitions cost money, lots of money; a portion of those M&A costs are for existing production and infrastructure to get that producion processed and to market, a LARGE portion of those M&A costs are for remaining drillable locations. Exxon, Conoco, Oxy and FANG are all reported to have paid $4MM per drillable location. That adds to well costs, considerably. Before a well can make a return on investment it first has to pay out D,C and leasehold costs. That is not happening in 2 years, as many data-sell companies want you to believe and can often take over 320K BO to pay the well out,
76% of the total EUR of the well !
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It is part of the reason that Exxon says it can expect a measley 30% rate of return on its increased budget expenditures in the Midland Basin...by 2029!
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Low natural gas prices are killing these big Permian players and they don't have the money to put more rigs out in the field, necessary to grow production.
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There all kinds of practical reasons the Permian cannot grow 3 MM BOPD besides declining rock quality. There is little water left to frac with and no place to put produced water onces it comes out of ground. Mostly there is no money to do it with.