While compiling the “Shale Play Short Takes” feature for our next issue of Shale Oil & Gas Business Magazine, I came across a very interesting and under-reported aspect of the energy boom taking place in the United States: The boom isn’t just happening in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.
Despite the prevailing narrative promoted by the energy news media for many months, the fact of the matter is that the U.S. has been in the midst of a growing, nationwide boom for several months now. Want proof? Here you go:
- A recovering natural gas price and the proximity to Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility has led to a modest resurgence in production from the Haynesville Shale region. Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) projects that production from the Haynesville will rise by “235 MMcf/d m/m to 8.97 Bcf/d in July.”
- In the DJ Basin, Bernadette Johnson, vice president for market intelligence at DrillingInfo told an audience in Littleton, CO in June that “Since December, we have seen oil grow by nearly 10,000 barrels per day every month,” and that DrillingInfo expects the rebound to continue in the coming months based on continued strong commodity prices.
- Bakken Shale production of both crude oil and natural gas rose in April, with natural gas production setting a new record high for the play. Crude production of 1.224 million barrels of oil per day came within 3,000 bopd of the all-time high, set in December 2014.
- Production from the Eagle Ford Shale formation in South and Central Texas recently topped the 3 billion barrel mark since its inception 2008, and daily production rates have risen to their highest point in more than 2 years.
- In the SCOOP/STACK play, Chad Wilkerson , Vice President and Oklahoma City Branch Executive for the Kansas City Federal Reserve branch, reports that Oklahoma’s oil production rose to an all-time high in December 2017 and is expected to continue to grow throughout the remainder of 2018. In addition, the state’s natural gas production has reached an all-time high in recent months.
- According to Wood Mackenzie, oil and gas production in deepwater Gulf of Mexico is expected to reach an all-time record high this year at 1.935 million boepd, of which 80 percent is oil—beating the previous record from 2009 by nearly 10 percent and representing 13-percent growth year over year.
So, next time someone tells you that there isn’t really an oil and gas boom happening anywhere other than the Permian Basin, inform them they are wrong and whip out a copy of this Shale ‘Splainer as proof.
For this and much more cutting-edge information on everything happening in U.S. shale today, subscribe to Shale Oil & Gas Business Magazine at www.shalemag.com .
This concludes our Shale ‘Splainer for June 25, 2018.
