The "Lost Decade": How Fracking Contaminated Water, Screwed Climate And Lost Billions Of Dollars
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As DeSmog has documented, shale drillers started the decade making spectacular promises to investors — but failed on the delivery. Shale gas would be so cheap companies could make money even if gas prices plunged, analysts predicted, and others forecast that shale oil could be produced for as little as $5 a barrel. Instead, companies racked up huge debts and massive write-downs even as production soared. A seeming paradox emerged, where debt-fueled energy companies churned out ever-growing amounts of oil and gas, but failed entirely at making their backers rich in the process, resulting in what some called the industry's “lost decade.”
“The 2010s was a lost decade for shares of U.S. energy companies overall,” Reuters reported in December. “Volatile commodity prices amid growing supply, poor financial performance, and disfavor from some investor groups all contributed to the energy sector's transformation from investor darling to investor outcast.” In 2011, The New York Times highlighted warning signs inside the oil and gas sector that the economics of shale were unworkable. “‘Money is pouring in’ from investors even though shale gas is ‘inherently unprofitable,’ an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February [2011] email. ‘Reminds you of dot-coms,’” a front-page New York Times article reported.
The end of the decade saw EQT, the nation’s largest natural gas producer, announce that their assets were worth $1.8 billion less than previously described. That was the result, the company said, of low gas prices and “changes to our development strategy.” Oil giant Chevron wrote down $11 billion in assets in December and fracking giant Schlumberger reported a $10 billion loss for 2019.
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n January, the Energy Information Administration reported that more than three quarters of the power capacity that companies plan to add in the U.S. this coming year will overwhelmingly come from wind and solar power. Those wind and solar projects will add over three times as much new capacity as is expected from natural gas additions. Over 70 percent of those natural gas plants are planned in the gas-producing states of Pennsylvania, Texas, California, and Louisiana, the Energy Information Administration added. “The analysis presents compelling evidence that 2019 represents a tipping point,” the Rocky Mountain Institute concluded in reports released last September, “with the economics now favoring clean energy over nearly all new U.S. gas-fired generation.”
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/01/21/2010s-decade-fracking-shale-climate-crisis
