Replies to post #2461 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

re: current fracking methods are wasteful.

yeah, a lot of unproductive shale gas wells are drilled and fracked because it's generally considered to be cheaper to do that than to use the more careful, deliberate methods that are used in oil and conventional gas exploration, field development, and well completion. The vast majority of shale gas wells are not logged at all. Consequently, a good bit of the learning process never happens and field development and well completions become a hodge-podge of hit-and-miss well placements and remedial completion practices.

The environmental crowd may actually help the larger exploration and service companies on this front. Developing shale gas reservoirs in a systematic way is expensive. Doing it in a sloppy way has proven to be effective and cheap. The big exploration and service companies can't compete on pricing as long as the sloppy approach remains the status quo. If the more deliberative approach becomes a legislative/regulatory requirement in order to avoid environmental problems, then the big boys win. One of those rare circumstances where a certain 400 B market cap company is cheering on the tree huggers.