Real Estate Opportunity ... And We Don't Know What We Don't Know

I received the following today as a comment. I know nothing about it other than this.

I am re-posting it here because some folks may not read the comments that come in:

I have a 140 SF development in Carpio in search of an equity investment.

clingrealestate@wi.rr.com

It was a comment to this post: http://www.milliondollarwayblog.com/2011/04/for-investors-only-partners-interested.html

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A Note To The Granddaughters  

I mentioned earlier that I am re-reading David Bodanis' biography of E=MC2. I had read it some time ago, but now, re-reading it, I do not recall any of it. Of if I do, only a small amount. I've said it before, but to get the most out of a book (or perhaps any experience) one must be prepared, and one more be ready to read it or experience it. 

There are so many lessons to be learned in the history of E=MC2 and many of them relate to the Bakken. 

During the late 1800s and the early 20th century when physicists and chemists were beginning to work out the equation, before Albert Einstein grasped it, the feeling I get is that these physicists and chemists did not know what that they did not know what they did not know. Mr Rumsfeld says it better than I:

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.

Regardless of your personal thoughts of Mr Rumsfeld, this is a most important observation, from wiki.

That insight has application to the Bakken.

I see that when I read the comments over at the Bakken Shale Discussion Group. It applies to me, also. There are simply things we do not know we don't know about unconventional shale, or tight oil.

Folks have suggested that the NDIC needs to put a textbook of "Oil Reservoir 101" or something to that effect on their bookshelf (and hopefully read it). The problem: the book on unconventional shale has not been written. It is being written, and one can read hundreds of drafts of chapters that will eventually make up the book, but the book itself has not been completed. There is no "Bakken 101" book or "Bakken For Dummies" for the NDIC to read.

I don't think folks get it. It seems to me the vast majority of folks give lip service to the fact that the Bakken is unconventional or tight, but then they want it developed or managed like classical oil pools. Based on the evolution of what has occurred in the Bakken, I am absolutely convinced the operators are learning as they go along. The regulators are being pulled along. Considering what they know and what they don't know, I am quite impressed how well they seem to be doing. [What bugs me the most: it appears that some operators are doing much better than others, and the operators doing poorly are not being held accountable.]

I have to chuckle: in the early days of the Bakken, there were any number of comments made by county commissioners that "we" need to slow down. I commented that it almost seemed that there attitude was: "Now  that I have my well, we can slow down development."

In the early days, the word on the street was that there would one well on each section before the Bakken was drilled out. Now, the better Bakken will have upwards of four wells on each section, maybe more, and the best Bakken could have twelve wells on a section. Now folks talk about unitizing the Bakken (which they will, because that's what you do with an oil field) but that's language from "classical" / standard oil pools, not from unconventional shale/tight oil, or whatever the correct terminology is (middle Bakken shale oil is different than upper Bakken tight oil, just for the record).

Anyway, for you, my granddaughters, the purpose of this note is to remind you: never quit reading. It amazes me that a book on the biography of Einstein's most famous equation has relevancy in the Bakken. In his time, physicists did not know what they did not know, and they completely missed what Einstein didn't. One almost gets the feeling that people following the Bakken, including me, do not know what we do not know.