Sadly, I concur with your view that directors frequently don’t know much about the businesses they supposedly oversee. Fortunately, I have the option of selling my shares and am not forced to live with the decisions of bad directors. I pay particular attention to the quality of the Board’s compensation policies (for the company’s executive branch). If they are too liberal or too convoluted, I count that as a significant negative, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.
Your statement that “sophisticated drilling, completion, and production techniques are not necessary for shale gas” goes counter to statements in the Schlumberger white paper you referenced in #msg-41181332. The white paper argues that completion techniques for shale gas requires sophistication. I’m guessing that if one uses unsophisticated completion techniques then the recoverable shale gas will indeed deplete fast (consistent with Sutherlin’s comments).
By the way, I’m not trying to defend Sutherlin or challenge your assessment. I’m just trying to tease out the real-world situation with regard to natural gas supplies. I have two (of five) investments that are impacted significantly by the natural gas situation. JOYG is negatively impacted because they serve the coal industry and natural gas is a major challenger; EXP is positively impacted because their cement and wallboard operations use very large quantities of natural gas; the lower natural gas prices have played a significant role in allowing EXP to remain profitable in these difficult times.
The white paper devotes several pages to the need for sophisticated completion techniques. Some of the major themes are: