The current shale boom can't last forever. A new report says it will end much sooner that the federal government realizes.
According to Tina Casey, a report by the Post Carbon Institute, titled "Drilling Deeper: A Reality Check on U.S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil & Shale Gas Boom," makes a dire prediction about the longevity of the domestic shale oil and gas boom, predicting that "reserves will peak and drop off rapidly, long before officially predicted by the US Energy Information Agency."
The Post Carbon Institute is the same organization that checked the U.S. EIA's projections for California’s Monterey Shale 1 formation—projections that ended up missing the mark by 96 percent—from 13.7 billion barrels to 600 million barrels.
This time, the "report examines EIA’s forecasts for 12 shale plays that together cover 82% of tight oil (tight oil refers to oil recovered from shale formations, not to be confused with oil shale) and 88% of shale gas production."
The report's analysis spells early doom for the current boom, as quoted in Casey's article:
- "Tight oil production from the two top plays, the Bakken and Eagle Ford, will underperform the EIA’s reference case oil recovery by 28% from 2013 to 2040…By 2040, production rates from the Bakken and Eagle Ford will be less than a tenth of that projected by the EIA."
- "Shale gas production from the top seven plays will underperform the EIA’s reference case forecast by 39% from 2014 to 2040…By 2040, production rates from these plays will be about one-third that of the EIA forecast."
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