Government Agency Warns Global Oil Industry Is on the Brink of a Meltdown

[NickB79]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown?utm_source=reddit.com

The report warns that global production growth may therefore soon stall due to the dodgy debt-driven economics of the US shale industry. While Saudi Arabia will no longer be able to ramp up production much, the US shale oil sector could be on the brink of unravelling due to massive unrepayable debts, declining production rates, and poor well quality.

While the productivity of shale oil wells has increased at first glance, the report says this has come at the expense of “observable decreases in real productivity.” Increasing production “has come at a cost of increased lateral drilling per hole and the increase of water, chemical, and proppant.”

So while average production from fracked US shale wells increased between 2010 and 2018 by 28 percent, in the same period water injection, chemical and proppant use increased by 118 percent. The report says this indicates the huge spike in extraction costs.

[pbmus]

1. Fantastic article...reader beware

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Smart countries invested in alternatives instead of driving 75mph @ 21 mpg

They told us shale would solve everything. Frack, frack, frack. They built pipelines. They engineered fuel efficiency into larger and larger houses.

But hey, maybe it's just me. I live a low-tech small footprint 1970s-80s carbon life. This is sustainable. I'm not worried, but other should be.

[Duppers]

3. I hope they go BROKE.

And hope the cost of petro becomes too high. Gov't must intervene with more public transportation and subsidies for consumer purchases of EVs.

[Laelth]

4. Um ... no.

This is a specious and highly inflammatory piece of paranoid propaganda.

-Laelth

[safeinOhio]

6. I'm with you

I always suspect these articles and just trying to help some big investors that wish to buy it all up at a "sell now" price.

[Laelth]

12. Precisely. n/t

-Laelth

[NickB79]

9. It was produced by the Geological Survey of Finland

The new report is published by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), which operates under the government’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. GTK is currently the European Commission’s lead coordinator of the EU’s ProMine project, its flagship mineral resources database and modeling system.

Finland and by extension the EU is in the business of producing paranoid propaganda now?

[Laelth]

11. No doubt. LOL. n/t

-Laelth

[Joe Nation]

5. I don't know how to feel right now.

Oh wait, yes I do.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Interesting read. Thanks NickB79. nt

[Grokenstein]

8. "There will always be more, right?"

"After all, that's what 'more' means!" -- Jim Henson's Dinosaurs

[marble falls]

13. Good knowing you.

[The_jackalope]

14. It sounds a lot like an idea I ran into 15 years ago

Rhymes with "bleak soil."

[greenman3610]

15. highly recommended