Harvard Study: Shale Drilling Means Oil Prices Heading Lower
A Harvard University study published in June takes a look at oil and makes the bold prediction that world oil prices will go down, substantially, by 2020. Why? You guessed it—the miracle of hydraulic fracturing of shale, particularly in the U.S.
The study, titled “Oil: The Next Revolution – The Unprecedented Upsurge of Oil Production Capacity and What it Means for the World,” (see below), says the Bakken/Three Forks play in North Dakota and Montana “could become a big Persian Gulf producing country within the United States.” And that’s just one play, out of 20!
Although this Harvard study is focused on oil, and MDN is largely focused on natural gas, the study highlights the critical role played by shale formations, and drilling in shale, sometimes the same well bore, delivers not only natural gas but natural gas liquids and oil. So this study and it’s conclusions are well worth your time to review. Notice the chart on page 13 of the PDF file (page 3 of the report): It shows the U.S. pulling very close to Saudi Arabia in oil production by 2020. Astonishing!
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Yesterday the commodity price of natural gas hit a 10-year low, $1.984 per 1,000 cubic feet. There will be plenty of stories in the press about it. However, in one of those stories, we get this interesting and helpful information about the price, as well as the areas producing the most natural gas and the drillers producing it:
How low might the commodity price of natural gas go before drillers really will quit drilling and wait for the price to go up? We’ll give you “the magic number” in a moment. But first, the (rather sketchy) rationale for how we calculate that number.