Wow, Wow, Wow -- Previously Discussed -- OXY USA And California Resources -- Monterey Shale A Scam -- Wolf Richter -- September 20, 2015

Updates

Later, 6:46 p.m. CT: see first comment below. 
 

Original Post

 

Business Insider is reporting:

Occidental Petroleum made a sweet deal on November 30, a masterpiece of Wall Street engineering. And just about every investor that touched it is now getting their hands burned off.

That day, Oxy spun off California Resources. It held Oxy’s oil-and-gas exploration-and-production assets in California. It’s the state’s largest natural gas producer and its largest oil-and-gas acreage holder with operations in the basins of Los Angeles, San Joaquin, Ventura, and Sacramento.

Oxy was the big player in the miraculous scam of the Monterey Shale formation in California, which had been hyped for years as the largest reserves of oil in the US. Any studies that showed that this oil wasn’t recoverable with [current] technologies due to the geological mess underground in earthquake land were shunted aside.

The EIA finally conceded that point in May 2014 and slashed the delusional estimates of the reserves by 96%. California isn’t exactly the easiest place for fracking in the US. When the EIA finally acknowledged reality, Oxy was the biggest loser.

Much, much more at the article.

I track the Monterey Shale here.