Connecting the Dots: Seemingly Unrelated Stories -- and How the Bakken Inserts Itself -- The Antrim Shale, Michigan

Link here.

Once one of the major natural gas sources in the US, Michigan's Antrim shale is losing the interest of some of the country's big oil and gas companies as investors move to exploit more productive locations, ...

Production in the shale stood at 131 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 2008, but this figure has been steadily declining, only reaching 85 Bcf last year. By 2020, GlobalData predicts this figure will continue to fall and stabilize at approximately 62 Bcf.

As a result of the shale's maturation, major oil and gas firms have divested their stakes and moved to acquire resources in newer shale plays with greater potential. From a total of 1,446 in 2006, the number of permits issued for Antrim Shale development dropped dramatically in 2011 to just 43, as major oil and gas players have increasingly redirected capital expenditure to more promising locations, such as the Barnett Shale, Bakken Shale, Marcellus Shale, Niobrara Shale and Haynesville Shale.

And only one of those five "shales" seems to be getting more exciting each day.

Even as "we" worry about operators moving out of the Bakken to "greener pastures" (or should we say, "blacker shales"), other operators are eyeing North Dakota.