Never Is A Long, Long Time -- December 23, 2014

The other day I posted this:

On another note, the Peak Oil folks just cannot give up.

For the archives: it is now confirmed, the IPs of new Bakken wells are declining.

It should be noted that the study only went back to November, 2013.

The author if of the belief that the "initial 24-hour production number" strongly correlates with how well that well will do. I wouldn't give the author's conclusions much credence. It should be noted that there at least three new issues affecting production: a) new flaring rules; b) new conditioning rules; c) the plummet in oil prices. These issues are relatively new but oil companies have seen them coming (at least the first two) for several months now. I take the study with a grain of salt. That, and $1.89, will get you a Starbucks coffee. 

You may want to take a look at the linked IPs story above. In response to this I received the most interesting comment:

Ron at PeakOilBarrel has a history of trumpeting weak claims for peaking. In the most recent case, someone did a careful analysis and showed no significant trend on Bakken wells getting worse:

http://peakoilbarrel.com/bakken-1st-24-hour-prod-validity-verified/comment-page-1/#comment-474819

Here is a previous screwup by Ron (he didn't understand how Texas reports boost amounts for several months by corrections).
http://peakoilbarrel.com/texas-rrc-monthly-update/

I really appreciate the comment. Thank you.  

By the way, the whole Peak Oil "thing" is very interesting. I'm not sure if folks agree on whether "peak oil" refers to a single field, a single basin, a single region, a single continent, the entire earth, or perhaps the entire universe.

It looks like the Peak Oil "thing' is, at least temporarily, irrelevant. I don't know if folks saw OPEC chief (or was it Saudi chief -- doesn't matter, pretty much the same) say yesterday Saudi will keep pumping at current levels if oil gets to $20 and "we will probably never see $100-oil again."

"Never" is a long, long time, but it's possible he meant we won't see $100-oil in his lifetime.

Long, Long Time, Linda Ronstadt