Dream of U.S. Oil Independence Slams Against Shale Costs | CollapseNet.

Off the World News Desk:

Dream of U.S. Oil Independence Slams Against Shale Costs 

“The path toward U.S. energy independence, made possible by a boom in shale oil, will be much harder than it seems.

Just a few of the roadblocks: Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back. Shale output drops faster than production from conventional methods. It will take 2,500 new wells a year just to sustain output of 1 million barrels a day in North Dakota’s Bakken shale, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Iraq could do the same with 60.

Consider Sanchez Energy Corp. The Houston-based company plans to spend as much as $600 million this year, almost double its estimated 2013 revenue, on the Eagle Ford shale formation in south Texas, which along with North Dakota is one of the hotbeds of a drilling frenzy that’s pushed U.S. crude output to the highest in almost 26 years. Its Sante North 1H oil well pumped five times more water than crude, Sanchez Energy said in a Feb. 17 regulatory filing. Shares sank 7 percent.

We are beginning to live in a different world where getting more oil takes more energy, more effort and will be more expensive,” said Tad Patzek, chairman of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Drillers are pushing to maintain the pace of the unprecedented 39 percent gain in U.S. oil production since the end of 2011. Yet achieving U.S. energy self-sufficiency depends on easy credit and oil prices high enough to cover well costs. Even with crude above $100 a barrel, shale producers are spending money faster than they make it…”

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MCR, Rice Farmer, and CollapseNet generally have been reporting on this since this website has been in existence. There is no “free lunch”, and one of the primary problems that comes with Peak Oil is that all the easy to get oil has been found and used (or is being pumped but is in decline), and finding and extracting what’s left will be more energy-intensive and cash-expensive. U.S. “energy independence” is a bigger fucking myth than Santa Claus…at least until the general public can no longer afford their energy-intensive lifestyles and oil demand drops off the cliff, which can also be referred to as the collapse of industrial civilization… – Wes

Dream of U.S. Oil Independence Slams Against Shale Costs | CollapseNet.

Off the World News Desk:

Dream of U.S. Oil Independence Slams Against Shale Costs 

“The path toward U.S. energy independence, made possible by a boom in shale oil, will be much harder than it seems.

Just a few of the roadblocks: Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back. Shale output drops faster than production from conventional methods. It will take 2,500 new wells a year just to sustain output of 1 million barrels a day in North Dakota’s Bakken shale, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Iraq could do the same with 60.

Consider Sanchez Energy Corp. The Houston-based company plans to spend as much as $600 million this year, almost double its estimated 2013 revenue, on the Eagle Ford shale formation in south Texas, which along with North Dakota is one of the hotbeds of a drilling frenzy that’s pushed U.S. crude output to the highest in almost 26 years. Its Sante North 1H oil well pumped five times more water than crude, Sanchez Energy said in a Feb. 17 regulatory filing. Shares sank 7 percent.

We are beginning to live in a different world where getting more oil takes more energy, more effort and will be more expensive,” said Tad Patzek, chairman of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Drillers are pushing to maintain the pace of the unprecedented 39 percent gain in U.S. oil production since the end of 2011. Yet achieving U.S. energy self-sufficiency depends on easy credit and oil prices high enough to cover well costs. Even with crude above $100 a barrel, shale producers are spending money faster than they make it…”

–

MCR, Rice Farmer, and CollapseNet generally have been reporting on this since this website has been in existence. There is no “free lunch”, and one of the primary problems that comes with Peak Oil is that all the easy to get oil has been found and used (or is being pumped but is in decline), and finding and extracting what’s left will be more energy-intensive and cash-expensive. U.S. “energy independence” is a bigger fucking myth than Santa Claus…at least until the general public can no longer afford their energy-intensive lifestyles and oil demand drops off the cliff, which can also be referred to as the collapse of industrial civilization… – Wes