The "Red Queen" Argument All Over Again -- January 2, 2019

Fracking has a problem -- WSJ -- link here. It's the "Red Queen" argument all over again. Among many other arguments. Additional comments here.

By the way, this is why this blog is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decision based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

The gist of the article: operators over-estimated their projections when talking to investors. Shocking! Shocking, I say!

Meanwhile, from the NDIC: historical monthly oil production statistic.

The entire North Dakota oil history. Oil was discovered in North Dakota in 1951. Data is available for every month, but I simply took the highest production month for any given year. Production routinely dropped below 30 bbls/well/day in the mid-1990s.

Year	Daily Oil Per Well (bbls)
1951	202
1952	231
1953	150
1954	58
1955	71
1956	69
1957	51
1958	43
1959	47
1960	47
1961	47
1962	48
1963	47
1964	47
1965	44
1966	44
1967	41
1968	42
1969	41
1970	41
1971	41
1972	40
1973	41
1974	40
1975	40
1976	40
1977	41
1978	42
1979	49
1980	54
1981	55
1982	48
1983	48
1984	46
1985	42
1986	40
1987	37
1988	33
1989	32
1990	31
1991	30
1992	28
1993	26
1994	25
1995	26
1996	29
1997	32
1998	32
1999	34
2000	29
2001	29
2002	27
2003	26
2004	29
2005	32
2006	34
2007	37
2008	50
2009	55
2010	70
2011	86
2012	96
2013	101
2014	105
2015	100
2016	88
2017	85
2018	91