Wow,Talk About A Retirement Party! -- December 6, 2018

Updates

Later, 10:10 p.m. CT: afraid that the link might be lost -- 

USGS Report Expands Permian’s Wolfcamp, Bone Spring Potential Bounty. 

The lede:

Anyone who follows the flow of U.S. oil and gas knows the Permian Basin’s Wolfcamp shale and Delaware Basin’s Bone Spring Formation are bountiful, but a new report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shows the enormity of their potential resources: an estimated 46.3 billion barrels of oil plus 281 trillion cubic feet of gas and 20 billion barrels of NGL.

That’s more than double the previous resource assessment for oil in the Wolfcamp.

I can never get my hands around "trillion cubic of natural gas." I need to compare 281 trillion cubic feet to other plays. See this link. Prior to the USGS report, natural gas reserves in the US were estimated to be 350 trillion cubic feet. Australia, 152 trillion cubic feet. Marcellus, 65 trillion cubic feet (probably will be revised upwards). 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- and remember, reserves are based partly on price of production; if the price of natural gas were to go up, reserves would go up. Incredible, absolutely incredible.

I doubt this will be reported on network nightly news. But we'll certainly see a story about a cat caught in a tree and rescued by fire department on the way to a seven-alarm fire. Or another story on severe weather.

I'm inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I'm clearly overly optimistic with my own estimates of 50 billions bbls of recoverable oil in the Bakken, but here it is, the very, very conservative USGS coming up with almost 50 billion bbls of recoverable oil in just a couple of pay zones in the Permian.

From wiki: "To convert to one boe, the USGS gives a figure of 6,000 cubic feet of typical natural gas."

So, 281 trillion cubic / 6,000 cubic feet = 50,000,000,000 boe. Assuming I did the math correctly. Big assumption. 

Original Post

 

The USGS, which is part of the U.S. Department of Interior, deemed its review of resources in the Permian Basin province as the “largest continuous oil and gas resource ever assessed.” The assessment released Dec. 6 was more like Christmas for U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, he said in a statement.

Wow, I need to get a life. I want to call it a night. I'm in a great mood, but exhausted. Loud 60's music recharging my battery (or is it batteries?).

I was ready to call it a day/night when a regular reader -- who seems to be as inappropriately exuberant about the US energy revolution as I am (😀) -- sent me a note.

I will post what he sent me and then get back to it tomorrow with links, etc. Also, tomorrow, a story about Trump and sage grouse.

But after this, I swear on the stack of bibles that I'm reading, I will not post any more notes until tomorrow. I will just read, watch the end of the NFL game on mute, and play 60's music as loud as I can without annoying the neighbors.

From the reader:

Greetings.

USGS report today puts Delaware portion of Wolfcamp along with Delaware Bone Spring at 46 billion barrels. 20 billion barrel NGLs.

This, combined with Midland Wolfcamp at 20 billion and Spraberry Midland at 4 billion gives 70 billion barrels technically recoverable resource from these formations alone!

There are several other formations/horizons within the Permian Basin. 

Paging Art Berman, indeed! 

Best Regards. 

Paging Art Berman! 😛

Sloop John B, Brian Wilson & Al Jardine

The Permian Now Holds The Record -- New USGS Report -- 3x Bigger Than The Bakken; Jaw-Dropping -- November 16, 2016

Three times the size of the record-setting Bakken.

 

Before you begin this "jaw-dropping" update on the Permian, let's go back to this observation made by an expert on oil and gas and also an expert on global warming:


From the linked articles below:

“It’s no surprise that Texas has massive oil fields, but these new findings from USGS are jaw-dropping. Fracking and horizontal drilling have turned the United States into a global energy superpower, and the untapped potential in the Wolfcamp means we won’t be surrendering that status any time soon,” group spokesman Steve Everly said. “For the few remaining advocates of ‘Peak Oil,’ this certainly isn’t their lucky day.”

Previous discovery record: 2013 -- North Dakota's Bakken-Three Forks.

From Bloomberg: a $900 billion oil treasure lies beneath West Texas desert.

From Breitbart: West Texas deposit 'largest" in history.

From MarketWatch: the US is increasingly looking at this Texas region for oil.

Data points that should get your attention:

• new USGS report
• 3x larger than North Dakota's Bakken
• single largest US unconventional crude accumulation ever assessed
• at current prices: almost $1 trillion
• the formation is as much as a mile thick -- read that again: this single formation is as much as a mile thick -- the Bakken is measure in tens of feet

More:

• the best news -- this report concerns a deposit in a state, that:
• is oil friendly
• sits next to Mexico
• has low tax rate
• is able to get pipelines laid
• has huge export capability along a coast relatively near a newly enlarged Panama Canal

More:

• location of the surveyed area: from north of Lubbock to remote regions southwest of San Angelo
• an estimated and previously unaccounted for 20 billion bbls crude oil; 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas; and 1.6 billion bbls of natural gas

More:

• at 75 billion bbls, second only to Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field
• Texas play: the Wolfcamp (I track the Wolfcamp here) 
• this play has already produced billions of bbls of oil
• recent story on land rush in the Permian -- two days ago

More:

• despite all the press on the Permian and despite producing since the 1920s, in fact, "its multiple layers of oil-soaked shale remained largely untapped until the last several years"
• COP, November 10, 2016: increased its own estimate for the size of its Wolfcamp holdings to almost 2 billion bbls from 1 billion bbls last year -- almost doubled its estimate
• COP: two recent wells -- pumping an average of 2,000 bopd

More:

• Bone Spring is a slice of the Wolfcamp, another Permian layer
• a 3-billion-bbl Alpine High discovery that Apache Corp announced two months ago
• oh, by the way, the Bone Spring could also be huge for EOG
• the blog was reporting stories about this incredible play years ago

More:

• everything above concerned crude oil
• in addition, the Wolfcamp holds 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
• in addition, the Wolfcamp holds 1.6 billion bbls of gas liquids   

More:

• west Texas' Permian basin holds nearly as many active oil and gas drilling rigs as the rest of the US combined -- and includes offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico
• the Permian is currently the only region where crude oil production is expected to increased for the third straight month