Hurricane Harvey "Tests" US Shale -- The WSJ -- August 29, 2017

From today's WSJ: Harvey’s widespread destruction tests U.S. shale. Archived.

The tropical storm is the biggest to hit the sector since shale drilling took off a decade ago; production may be slow to bounce back.

Before Harvey made landfall as a hurricane Friday, many big shale producers in the Eagle Ford shale fields near Corpus Christi, Texas, shut down their oil and gas wells, and initial estimates for lost production were between 400,000 and 500,000 barrels a day.

As the hurricane’s widespread devastation has become clearer, several analysts say it is almost certain that much, if not most, of the region’s 1.4 million barrels a day of output is shut down.

Not mentioned:

• the Bakken
• East Coast refineries
• mid-continent refineries
• CBR

I thought this interesting in the article:

Restarting wells may not guarantee that they flow at the same rate as before the storm, said Tony Sanchez, chairman of Eagle Ford operator Sanchez Energy Corp. , in an interview before the storm.

While Mr. Sanchez said he didn’t expect the outages to be too extensive or last too long, he said that on a technical level he fears that shale wells, once shut off, could lose pressure.

“It’s not just a matter of flipping a switch,” he said. “There is significant risk in those wells not coming back to previous levels.”

Maybe I'm missing something, but that does not seem to be a problem in the Bakken. In fact, more often than not, it seems, taking a well off-line for a few months is beneficial. 

The article certainly raises the issue of the need for "redundancy."

It will be interesting to see how high gasoline prices rise in New York state. I assume there will be minimal impact on prices in California.

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The Evolution of Beauty: 

How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World -- And Us

Richard O. Prum

c. 2017

DDS: 591.56DRU 

Darwin's first great book: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: "Darwin's dangerous idea.

One problem: the peacock's tale.

Darwin's "really dangerous idea" was his second book: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

Baculum.

The author argues that theologians have it wrong. Eve was not made from an Adam's rib. Count them: men have 12 pair of ribs, just like women.