Why I Love To Blog -- Reason #12 -- October 18, 2017 -- Natural Gas: Haynesville Has Almost Half What Qatar Has -- HUGE!

This is absolutely why I love to blog. I have just spent a fair amount of time going through the Financial Times article asking whether the US shale revolution has peaked. I check my mail and I find a link to this story in the WSJ: an old fracking hot spot makes a comeback. The Haynesville Shale in Louisiana is being reborn, with the number of active drilling rigs tripling in the past year.

So, to answer the question posed by the Financial Times, no, an emphatic "no," the US shale revolution has not peaked. In fact, with exports of crude oil now increasing, one could argue the US shale revolution is only just beginning.

Now, back to the linked WSJ article. From the article:

A new report by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Haynesville and nearby Bossier shales contain more than 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, up from roughly 70 trillion cubic feet in its last survey in 2010. [And this is at $3-natural gas.]

The Haynesville Shale, a giant natural-gas field in northwest Louisiana, was one of fracking’s hottest spots a decade ago. But it fizzled out about five years ago as gas prices plunged and drillers focused on finding oil next door in Texas. Now, the Haynesville is being reborn as companies with longstanding positions in the area, such as Chesapeake Energy Corp., and newcomers seeking opportunity rush back in and drill again.

Gas production from the Haynesville has risen more than 20% so far this year, to more than 7 billion cubic feet a day from less than 6 billion in January, according to the U.S. Energy Department. The number of rigs active in northern Louisiana parishes and the Texas portion of the field has more than tripled in the past year to 44, according to oil field services company Baker Hughes Inc.

Chesapeake Energy has been learning how to get more out of the ground by drilling and fracking longer wells, Mr. Patterson told investors earlier this month. Chesapeake, which now produces more than 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas each day in the Haynesville, plans to ramp up efforts to re-frack old wells where production is starting to peter out to squeeze more out of them, using newer technology.

QEP Resources Inc. is also re-fracking 30 Haynesville wells this year.

Most WSJ articles have 0 - 5 comments or so. This article currently has 56 comments which suggests a considerable amount of interest in this subject. Some comments on the comments:

• Yiquan Hu is an idiot. At least his / her comment suggests an idiot wrote it.
• Jim Decker is right on target: drilling does not cause earthquakes. Earthquakes associated with fracking have to do with waste water (produced water) being injected back into another deep well. This is almost totally an Oklahoma/crude oil issue and has nothing do to with the Haynesville. With regard to water table contamination: this is "total leftist propaganda."
• David Cates: a nominee for the Geico Rock Award.

By the way, from an earlier post:

• May 16, 2017: Haynesville experiencing a resurgence as takeaway is bottled up in the northeast.

The Haynesville is tracked here. Occasionally.

From an earlier post regarding natural gas reserves:

Now, let's go back and re-run the numbers that were posted earlier:

• that recent huge Mediterranean natural gas find: 30 trillion cubic feet
• Barnett, revised USGS figures: 53 trillion cubic feet
• Utica, newly revised figures: 782 trillion cubic feet
• Marcellus, EIA revised estimates: 65 trillion cubic feet, "proved" reserves

• October 18, 2017, Haynesville: USGS survey -- 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, up from roughly 70 trillion cubic feet in its last survey in 2010.

• Bakken/Three Forks, USGS estimate: 7 trillion cubic feet
• Qatar: 800 trillion cubic feet, wiki, conversion