The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

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Re WSJ journal article on shale well long term decline rates. I no longer subscribe and have not read the article. I have in the past found that their coverage of in the weeds issues in the oil patch to be lacking. They are good at corporate level reporting, special assignments like the BP blowout and analysis. I doubt the reporter in this case has any insights based upon my review of what has been reported by companies and SPE (see link below). I don't know if the reporter's comments take into account the IP and flush production period (the first several months to 2 years) or if he is referring to the long term decline as discussed in the SPE review. From a well profitability perspective, IP and flush production is much more important than when the wells enter into long term decline. Also, the analysis is being done on older frac tech wells >5 yrs old. Even then, it is a second order effect on economics given the time discount.

One item that caught my attention was PXD slide that suggest that oil recovery factor can be significantly boosted via EOR. I assume the analog would be North Cross (see link at bottom), and oil is still being stripped there after many years of injection. If PXD and OXY (took over north cross from Shell) can find even a fraction of the NCross success with the process, there would be a big ramp up in production from old plays if prices are sufficiently high.

https://www.spe.org/en/jpt/jpt-article-detail/?art=4532
https://www.onepetro.org/conference-paper/SPE-170653-MS