Hunter-Gatherers --> Farming-Animal Domestication --> Industrial Revolution --> Nuclear Age --> The Shale Economy

There are so many story lines in this one Platts story, but I will focus on only one. 

Platts is reporting:

In case you didn’t catch it, investment house Credit Suisse had a wonderfully informative conference call for their clients last week on how they see the future of the shale revolution that has engulfed the oil patch in the last decade and become hyper-active especially in the last several years.
Among the bank’s conclusions: 

• shale is a vital component of current US production which is growing at a huge clip — 
• CS sees as much as 10 million b/d of US oil production in the next several years, up from 6.5 million b/d last year
• consistently improving well results from big plays such as the Permian Basin in West Texas and Bakken Shale in North Dakota

Moreover, it’s not only the upstream that is exploding, but also companies that supply the technologies to eke out more oil in less time. Even ancillary services are exploding, such as technologies that can treat and dispose of water — a crucial component of well fracturing.  And all this will require many billions of investment dollars into a shale economy still years away from the mature development stage.

So, is this a stretch?

Hunter-Gatherers --> Farming-Animal Domestication --> Industrial Revolution --> Nuclear Age --> The Shale Economy

In the near term, the difference between the global "haves" (North America) and the global "have-nots" (Europe) is, to some extent, man-made.

In the near term, the difference between the North American "haves" (North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania) and the North American "have-nots" (New York state) is, to a great extent, man-made.

In the near-term to mid-term, the economic gap between the global "haves" (North America) and the global "have-nots (Europe) is going to wide significantly. See recent post on the grim prospect of Europe: it could be the only continent that imports 80% of its energy needs.

In the near term, the economic gap between the North America "haves" and the North American "have-nots" may widen, but it won't be due to the fracking, per se. Many of the states that do not have oil or do not allow fracking, can still participate in the shale economy: sand, steel manufacturing, ceramic manufacturing, refineries, processing plants. But it is simply a matter of time, perhaps measured in decades before even those shale oil-rich states that don't allow fracking will accept this technology.

The linked Platts article is very, very good, as usual.

For trivia buffs, I liked this bit of information:

Petrohawk was a humdrum company before being catapulted into the status of shale guru after its Eagle Ford find.  So much so, that barely three years after discovering the field, the company was sold to BHP Billiton in 2011 for $15 billion. 

Floyd Wilson, who ran Petrohawk, has essentially reincarnated his former independent in another company, Halcon Resources, which he formed last year.  (Even the names is similar to its predecessor:  Halcon means “hawk” in Spanish.)  Wilson recently trumpeted a new play, which he named ”El Halcon,” in East Texas, another widely-drilled area for many decades; already several companies are said to have congregated there hoping to pan out some shale oil volumes.