Future of Fracking Not Nearly as Bright as Forecasted

Steve Horn, DeSmogBlog | October 27, 2014 8:25 am | Comments

Post Carbon Institute has published a report calling into question the production statistics touted by promoters of hydraulic fracturing or fracking. By calculating the production numbers on a well-by-well basis for shale gas and tight oil fields throughout the U.S., Post Carbon concludes that the future of fracking is not nearly as bright as industry cheerleaders suggest.

The report, Drilling Deeper: A Reality Check on U.S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil & Shale Gas Boom, authored by Post Carbon fellow J. David Hughes, updates an earlier report he authored for Post Carbon in 2012.

Hughes analyzed the production stats for seven tight oil basins and seven gas basins, which account for 88 percent and 89 percent of current shale gas production.

Among the key findings:

By 2040, production rates from the Bakken Shale and Eagle Ford Shale will be less than a tenth of that projected by the Energy Department. For the top three shale gas fields—the Marcellus Shale, Eagle Ford and Bakken—production rates from these plays will be about a third of the U.S. Energy Infromation Administration (EIA) forecast.
The three year average well decline rates for the seven shale oil basins measured for the report range from an astounding 60 percent to 91 percent. That means over those three years, the amount of oil coming out of the wells decreases by that percentage. This translates to 43 percent to 64 percent of their estimated ultimate recovery dug out during the first three years of the well’s existence.
Four of the seven shale gas basins are already in terminal decline in terms of their well productivity: the Haynesville Shale, Fayetteville Shale, Woodford Shale and Barnett Shale.
The three year average well decline rates for the seven shale gas basins measured for the report ranges between 74 percent to 82 percent.
The average annual decline rates in the seven shale gas basins examined equals between 23 percent and 49 percent. Translation: between one-quarter and one-half of all production in each basin must be replaced annually just to keep running at the same pace on the drilling treadmill and keep getting the same amount of gas out of the earth.

The report’s findings differ vastly from the forward-looking projections published by the EIA, a statistical sub-unit of the U.S.Department of Energy (DOE).

The findings also come just days after Houston Chronicle reporter Jennifer Dlouhy reported that in a briefing over the summer, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski told her it was EIA’s job to “tell the industry story” about tight oil and shale gas production.

“We want to be able to tell, in a sense, the industry story,” Sieminski told Dlouhy, as reported in the Chronicle. “This is a huge success story in many ways for the companies and the nation, and having that kind of lag in such a rapidly moving area just simply isn’t allowing that full story to be told.”

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Comments

Ghawker

42–64% of a well’s ultimate recovery coming out the first 3 years of production is a bad thing? Sounds like a high rate of return project, with quick payout to me. And the Bakken and Eagle Ford production at 700,000 bbls/day in 2040 may not sound like much, but it’s a lot more than the 200 bbls/day they were producing in 2005. We told you guys that this revolution would drop oil prices, and you always said “when?”–now that it has, you say “It’s not economic!”
- Phillip Moya
  
  The good news it helps the economy. The bad news it’s an environmental disaster. The fact it uses millions of gallons of water in states that are in a drought is criminal. The fact it produces induced earthquakes without accountability is criminal. The fact it contaminates water wells in Dish, Chico, and Pavillion, with methane is criminal. The fact the EPA was suppose to report on the safety of fracking and hasn’t is criminal The face that hundreds of hazardous chemicals are used in fracking without accountability (Halliburton Loophole). is criminal.
  - d_vwatts
    
    What is criminal is that it is legal. The EPA problem is they have no authority. If you don’t have to comply with the clean air act, the clean water act, the right to know act, or superfund, what is there for EPA to check on?
    - Phillip Moya
      
      The EPA is a joke. They were ordered by congress in 2011to study Hydrofracing and it’s impact on the enviorment.The study involved seven natural plays that hadn’t been hydrofracked. The outcome was to be published this year . I guess when they cut the EPAs budget in 2012 by 17% they dumped it. They drilled well in Pavillion and again after they concluded fracking caused the contamination they dropped the ball. Myself I don’t thin anyone can sign a nondisclosure until the EPA weighs in . Like that’s going to happen.
  - Wetback
    
    Fracking doesn’t induce earthquakes, I did a research project on this.
    
    Deep injection wells do though. Big difference.
    - GibbyD
      
      yes , the industry knew that Injection wells caused earthquakes as far back as 1966 when Sunoco did their own study of it in Oklahoma . In 2012 , eleven top geologists and engineers in Ohio , did an investigation and study concerning Injection Wells and they ALL concluded that Injection Wells cause earthquakes . You cannot have Horizontal Fracking without Injection Wells. It was at least a month or two ago that it was also determined that Horizontal Fracking itself may also be connected with causing earthquakes but those studies are not as clearly as conclusive .
      - Wetback
        
        Actually, you can easily have fracking without injection wells.
        
        Injection wells are one of the almost 10 different procedures for disposing of frack flowback water.
        
        One of the methods gaining a lot of traction these days is cleaning the flowback water to drinking water standards and releasing it to the local groundwater table or reusing it.
        
        Please research gibby:)
      - GibbyD
        
        Wetback , I have been researching Horizontal Fracking for the last 6 years . Injection Wells ARE THE ONLY VIABLE option for the millions of gallons of contaminated and often highly toxic waste-water . NO treatment plant will accept this waste-water because it is impossible to clean and reclaim that kind of contaminated water . There have been theories about how to do it BUT NOTHING affordable has been discovered , NOTHING !!!
        
        We are also not even talking about the flow back water but rather all the water that is forced down into the Frack Well that has to be disposed of . Some of it might be able to be used again for other fracking ,but then again, it cost too much and the industry will not do it .
      - Wetback
        
        You are looking at very old research or haven’t been researching much yourself.
        
        There is a Chevron frack flow back plant in the Permian Basin purifying frack flowback water and selling it to the Midland, TX water utility.
        
        Pioneer Natural Resources also has one, and so do many companies in Colorado.
        
        I interned for Chevron this summer as a drilling engineer, the plant handles 30% of the flowback water currently, and it will be ramped up to 100% within a few years.
        
        Pretty cool technology. Energy companies understand water is scarce in these regions and understand if not environmentally- that they must maximize their usage of water- which means recycling it.
        
        FYI, the only water that needs to be disposed of after a frack is the water that comes out after the frack.That is the water at issue.
        
        Water that is stuck in formation is static and will not go anywhere.
        
        It’s not a standard municipal chemical-4 stage separation water treatment plant like you see in the city.
        
        This plant uses a 4 stage solids control process and then is fed into a humidifying silo (I don’t know exactly what goes on in there, except its condensing constantly from gas to liquid, and it’s a new technology).
        
        The company doing this work for Pioneer Natural resources is a startup founded by a few MIT engineers.
      - GibbyD
        
        If so , then there should be a complete moratorium on all Horizontal Fracking until those systems are in place everywhere and fully operational. And after that, there must be a complete eradication of all horizontal Fracking until there is absolutely no well water and aquifers being contaminated. So far this also is not happening . The contamination of our drinking water because of THE WHOLE PROCESS of Horizontal Fracking is a greater problem than the earthquakes caused by Injection Wells . The casings in the pipe almost always will become breached allowing pathways for contamination . The gases including methane and radon are spewed out into the atmosphere . Radon is the number two cause of lung cancer only second to smoking . There are allot of people that have already been harmed related to the whole process of Fracking and for this cause I believe it , Horizontal Fraking , should be banned .
        
        The following is a list of over 6000 testifying of the harm that the whole process of Horizontal Fracking has caused them and their loved ones . http://pennsylvaniaallianceforcleanwaterandair.wordpress.com/the-list/
      - Phillip Moya
        
        I’m not to sure the water laced with chemicals will stay there. What’s to prevent it from migrating up. I guess we have to wait and see. Hopefully we don’t have an earthquake and prove everyone wrong.
    - VAppalachia1
      
      Please search the terms Hilcorp, Ohio, fracking and earthquake. You will find accounts that the Ohio Geological Survey did attribute earthquakes around Hilcorp’s wells in Ohio caused an earthquake felt by people living across the region.
      
      Research the Guy Earthquake Swarm in Arkansas. When fracking stopped, so did the earthquakes.
    - Phillip Moya
      
      www. Huffingtonpost.com 2014/04/11 Ohio earthquakes. It states 2 earthquakes were caused by fracking as opposed to injection . This was brought out by
      .Assoiciated Press Corespondent Kevin Begos and AP science writer Alicia Chang . Interesting article.
    - Phillip Moya
      
      Wetback Times have changed since you did your research. Today in Texas they have to due seismic research on one hundred square miles of the well bore. If the area is prone to earthquakes guess what no permit. In Oklahoma they have equipment at the well to measure any seismic activity. I’m just surprised nobody hasn’t sued them yet. I know their being sued for sinkholes but earthquakes not yet.
FrackmanGasser

So… We should believe a group that is anti-fracking, anti-fossil fuel instead of the government’s Department of Energy? Yeah, right…
- Phillip Moya
  
  Believe the oil companies when they say the chemicals they use are harmless. I read 40 chemicals used in fracking in New York were cancer causing and another 20 had a bad effect on the environment. Believe the oil companies when they say no one has been hr from fracking. When I read the Parr family sued 9 companies for health related issues and signed non disclosure agreements, except for one and they were awarded 2.9 million for the Aruba Petroleum. Laua Amos family signed non disclosure so did the Hallowich family (and their two children 7, 10).
  - Chemist
    
    The major chemical companies frac with is dihydrogen monoxide. This chemical compound has been known to cause suffocation and death. In overly abundant quanties (like pumped on these fracs), it can destroy foundations of houses and completely reshape the nearby ecosystem…
    This is ridiculous! Why can they pump these harsh sounding chemicals!
    If you missed the sarcasm, you’re part of the problem…
    - d_vwatts
      
      They can do it because they are exempt. If you are pumping it into a gas well you are good to go. Spill it on your lawn and you are going to jail.
    - Phillip Moya
      
      I guess your right, we do have chemicals that are used in our everyday life. I think the people of Pittsburgh were over reacting when they discovered three Pennsylvania treatment plants were discharging flowback (with toxins). into the Allegheny river (drinking water for Pittsburg). They only did it for two years and to force them to make upgrades to their equipment in the tune of 30,000,000 is ludicrous.
    - TecumsehUnfaced
      
      That brilliant! If you missed the sarcasm, you’re part of the problem… and an ersatz chemist.
mapsguy1955

This doesn’t make sense to me, unless their goal is to increase renewables, which we SHOULD do, regardless.
JTR

Almost everyone is addicted to the growing power of money to grow the economy forever — on a slowly shrinking planetary biosphere struggling to process the growing tons of pollution dumped into the environment every day and night; and now the climate is degenerating in a three year drought that will no doubt get worse along with more ecocidal changes, until life can no longer exist on planet Earth. Humans have the technical power to safely recycle 100% of our waste materials and peacefully reduce their population, but their lust for money and power drives them to ignore the dangers and push on, regardless of consequences.
Huh

The Authors, Steve Horn, is a “research fellow”. He does not hold a real private sector job and yet he feels qualified to pontificate about such endeavors. He is a liberal that is completely against fossil fuel production and will slice and dice any data that comes his way into whatever will support his causes. Truth is: The Bakken will continue for quite some time and by 2040, newer technology will propel the region into even more growth. Moore’s Law reaches into fossil fuel production techniques as well as computer tech.
- d_vwatts
  
  Uh, no it doesn’t follow Moore’s Law. Otherwise oil would be $1/barrel. It gets more expense and harder to find the more you take out. The reason there is a boom is because Cheney exempted the O&G industry from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Right to Know Act, and superfund in 2005. If he hadn’t the EPA would be all over them for injecting carcinogens into the ground, flaring carcinogens into the air, and dumping used frack fluid into water supplies.
  - Huh
    
    You are ignoring inflation. Gas is cheaper now that it was in the 70’s, and the technology has vastly improved, and is much cheaper than before. EPA does not follow Moore’s Law in the slightest – they continually get in the way of improvements. Perhaps you missed the study that the EPA performed in Wyoming regarding fraking: No contamination levels exceeded guidelines. The “Sky is Falling” mentality is simply wrong.
    - TecumsehUnfaced
      
      I’d like to see your math for the remarkable assumptions you’re making here.
      - Huh
        
        Assumptions?
        Google it – it is hard fact.
      - TecumsehUnfaced
        
        Just like a typical frackhead… has to beg others to support his silliness. When are Mommy and Daddy going to kick you out?
      - Huh
        
        Typical liberal – lose an argument so resort to name calling.
      - TecumsehUnfaced
        
        What argument? You just made up some ridiculous numbers like a disingenuous conservative and insolently demanded that others research your bullshit.
        
        Admit it! You can’t support your silly numbers.
        
        Either support your assumptions, or stand admitted as being a frackhead with no case.
      - Huh
        
        The Earth orbits the Sun – Hard fact, but I am not about to waste my time convincing you of that fact. Do you know what inflation is? Well, it too is a hard fact. So is the truth that fraking occurs far far below the water table.
        
        Have you ever been to an oil field? Have you ever actually seen how horizontal drilling works? Have you ever studied the facts? Again, you have already made up your mind and have drawn incorrect conclusions.
        
        I have done the research, been to the fields, and read the EPA studies. This is a blog, not a college class or work assignment. Cling to your fables if you wish – I truly do not care if you remain ignorant.
      - TecumsehUnfaced
        
        What a ridiculous answer! I asked you for your sources. Because you have been mendacious throughout and can’t defend your absurd premises, you give this absolutely meaninglessly and stupidly insulting “answer.”
        
        I don’t believe any of your nonsensically insolent claims.
        
        Prove something, other than you are thoroughly dishonest and are wiggling desperately to prove otherwise by spewing out calumnies.
        
        Fraud.
      - Huh
        
        I am forgetting Murphy’s Law: Never argue with a fool. So I am done with you. Stay ignorant and keep watching MSNBC-HeeHaw
      - TecumsehUnfaced
        
        Too bad. You can’t win. You’ve already demonstrated that you see a fool every time that you shave, since you can only defend the silly claims that you make, except by insults and presumptions of an education of no evidence apparent.
        
        I hope you will indeed stay away and stop polluting serious discussions with your specious vapors.
        
        Another thing, you buzzing dildo of hilarious presumptions, I don’t watch MSNBC. I don’t watch TV, which the “Huh” type can’t live without.
      - TecumsehUnfaced
        
        If it’s hard fact, present it. If it’s not, demand that others go find it, i.e. “Google it.”
      - Huh
        
        You wouldn’t understand the math – I could dance mathematical circles around you.
    - GBL
      
      Perhaps you missed the documentary broadcasted on WTTG concerning fracking on an Indian reservation. Initially, the company gave the reservation a payoff. There was the promise of good jobs for the Native Americans. I am sure a token number of the residents found employment with the oil company. Primarily, they brought in a large population of outsiders, specialized in this type of work. The influx of Non Native Americans triggered a whole host of the new problems. In moved the drug cartels, resulting in drug addiction for Native Americans and non native. Increased crime, without the benefit of sufficient law enforcement and legal systems ensued. The quiet serenity of the agricultural community vanished. The sounds of drilling and blasting pervaded the reservation, and an unending line of trucks traveled down the once peaceful country roads. The quality of the drinking water was forever tarnished.
      In another words, the primary benefit was to the oil company, itself.
- TecumsehUnfaced
  
  “Huh” is a conservative who will slice and dice any data that comes his way that will support his cause of extracting fossil fuel for corporate profit no matter the consequences to the environment and other people. He hates people of conscience, calls them “liberals” (a term of which he has no understanding) and then “refutes” them with unsupported industry propaganda. He can’t even support the nonsensical assumptions about gas being cheaper now than in the 1970’s.
  - Huh
    
    I’ll bet you are the typical liberal hypocrite that whines and complains about fraking as you fill up your car with gas on your way to the airport.
    - TecumsehUnfaced
      
      Heh, even if I were, how would it justify your evil position toward the victims of the ravages of fracking?
      
      Your kind will make any false equivalence you can dream up to justify the unjustifiable.
  - Huh
    
    Moronic liberals like you say the word: “profit” as if spitting something out of their mouths. People that don’t care about profits either work for the government, are union members, or don’t work at all.
    Do you drive a car? Then YOU are compromising the environment.
    Fraking is no worse than traditional oil drilling and that has been going on for over a century.
    - TecumsehUnfaced
      
      Another stupidity uttered by duplicitously mis-simplifiying the other people’s positions. Yammer me some more clownish assumptions about my understanding of economics. They go to show that you are only hre to propagandize.
      
      No, I don’t own a car. I take bus and train, and rent a car only very rarely.
      
      Conflating driving a car with fracking is another mendacious trick of the the propagandist.
      
      Fracking has been heavily for only a little over a decade, even though there has been light use of it since the 1940’s. Again you show the utter dishonesty with which you operate.
      
      Again, can or can you can support your claim that gas costs less now than in the 1970’s. If you can’t, just say no. Don’t keep revealing what a liar your are by issuing silly insult against liberals, or whatever names you have for people who object your owners making money at tremendous injury to other.
      
      Any more standard industry disinformation and slanders you wish to dump on me?
- TecumsehUnfaced
  
  One last thing, fraud, I let you get away with so much disinformation and just asked you to substantiate one little thing and got a flood of evasions and excoriations in return. You said you leaving. Please make it permanent, because if I see any more of your disinformation, I will challenge it in spite of the tantrums I get in return.
  
  So do your homework, before you type.
Awasis Crowley

Even if that were true, that is based on the information and technology we have now, not what we are going to have in 5, 10, 20 years.
Wetback

Jesus, I hate these uneducated articles. Shows the author has ZERO KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY.

The gold mine of shale oil is not that wells decline rapidly, but that they are extremely energy dense. The porosity of shale is very high. It holds a lot of oil. The only downside is that permeability is very low, so we have to do some work to get the oil flowing.

Per acre of square footage, you are getting much more energy than say from a conventional reservoir in Alaska.
WalterByrd123

the best way to save energy is to move half of all Democrats to Siberia. Give each one of them two warm blankets, donated by ebola patients in Liberia…….
(he he he he)
No seriously, we do need to drastically reduce our Democratic population and any way and all ways are fair to hard working, tax paying Americans, neither of which category (hard working and tax paying) describes any Democrat in America
WalterByrd123

the bogus statement that tracking causes water loss is spurious…all the water used to ‘frack’ the well comes back out of the well with the pressurized gas and oil….what a goober thing to say, that water is ‘lost’…water comes back and is replaced
- d_vwatts
  
  The water is trucked in, and water that is contaminated with carcinogens in the fracking fluid is not a “replacement” for clean water. Wells don’t have water decontamination facilities, they have pits where it seeps into the ground or evaporates in the air.
bshaef

So, a dude from Canada comes along and says that the EIA’s shale oil forecast is wrong for the year 2040. Even if he is a Canuck, he’s entitled to his opinion but Yahoo has given him and some obscure institute credibility by publishing this article and not labelling it as conjecture. I think the EIA is more right that the Canadian dude and I think Yahoo’s editors should be expelled from any journalistic associations they belong to and be given the National Enquirer award for sensationalist reporting.
GibbyD

cancer and death will increase where horizontal Fracking is done the most .
GibbyD

The oil and gas industry knew that Injection wells caused earthquakes as far back as 1966 when Sunoco did their own study of it in Oklahoma . In 2012 , eleven top geologists and engineers in Ohio , did an investigation and study concerning Injection Wells and they ALL concluded that Injection Wells cause earthquakes . You cannot have Horizontal Fracking without Injection Wells. It was at least a month or two ago that it was also determined that Horizontal Fracking itself may also be connected with causing earthquakes but those studies are not as clearly as conclusive .
WalterByrd123

we must get rid of all nonsense in this evaluation.
This should be an analysis devoid of emotion, or hysteria.
Now, lets send the Post Carbon Institute to Siberia, for deep, deep, deep freeze, until they learn to love carbon…….
- TecumsehUnfaced
  
  Are you sure you can still freeze things in Siberia?
DaveMurphy4561

Patented LPG gel fracturing technology: It’s waterless. It’s safe. And it stimulates much higher reservoir production.

GASFRAC’s proven, advanced gelled LPG technology replaces conventional water-reliant fracturing methods.

First, there’s no water. It’s a Liquefied Petroleum Gas gel that is as natural to a well as soil is to the earth. Soluble in formation hydrocarbons, it improves performance without using water.

Second, it’s safe. We’ve developed a zero-oxygen, closed system and specialized equipment that protects worker safety, eliminates post-job cleanup and requires only minimal flaring that can be reduced to zero given the appropriate recapture facilities.

Third, it produces more. The ability to quickly recover 100% of the fracturing fluid results in enhanced oil and gas recovery, longer sustained production, and the ability to recapture, reuse or resell—a highly cost-effective benefit, especially for multi-stage horizontal wells.
Mike A’Doodle

In 2007, a fortune-teller named Al Gore conjured up the notion that the north polar ice caps would disappear by 2014: http://youtu.be/GPLD8aylRiw?t=6s

Future of Fracking Not Nearly as Bright as Forecasted

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