Peak Oil Barrel

123 responses to “July World Oil Production New All Time High”

1. Schinzy

   11/13/2025

   Thanks for the work Ovi, fantastic as always.

   Prices down, investment down, and production keeps rising. Go figure. I never expected this.

   1. Ciripescu Pămpălău

      11/13/2025

      When everything is controlled by algos. Isn’t that expected?

   2. Ovi

      11/13/2025

      Schinzy

      Thanks. Much appreciated.

      We are in strange times. There may be two reasons for the increasing production from OPEC.

      Kazakhstan was really breaking the agreed OPEC targets when the new Tengiz field owned by Chevron came online earlier this year and the Kazakhstan president didn’t ask CVX to reduce production.

      The other factor is Ukraine and the price of oil. T gets a double win here. T asked Saudi Arabia to reduce the price of oil by pumping more to get gasoline costs down in the US. As a side benefit it reduces the revenue P gets from selling Russian oil to fund his war.

2. Pămpălău Ciripescu

   11/13/2025

   Back in the day Ghawar was the main point of interest of peak oiler

   https://en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br/ghawar-the-oil-field-in-saudi-arabia-that-alone-produced-more-than-70-billion-barrels-and-is-almost-the-size-of-a-brazilian-state-dsca00/

   Now nobody talks about it

   Ghawar is special due to its size

   we could say the same about Permian

   Ghawar has peculiar physics due to its size same with Permian (although Permian is not a field per-se like Ghawar)

   The world depends on the good behaviour of these two

   1. Ovi

      11/13/2025

      Pămpălău Ciripescu

      Agreed we don’t hear much about Ghawar any more because some of the veil of mystery has been pulled back.

      In 2018, SA released information on a number of their oil fields. Then in January 2024 they cancelled their plans to increase the production capacity from 12,000 kb/d to 13,000 kb/d. Was this because they realized it was not possible to increase capacity due to the state of their oil fields or was it a realization that World demand was going to peak shortly.

      A Table

   2. Ovi

      11/13/2025

      In 2018 Ghawar had a maximum sustainable capacity of 3,800 kb/d. See table above. Around 2003 the speculation was that Ghawar was producing 5,200 kb/d. Also SA said that yearly in-drilling in Ghawar reduced its decline rate from 8% per annum to 2% per annum.

      Attached is a highly idealized chart which starts production at 5,200 kb/d and declines at 2% per year. In 2018, MSC is 3,841 kb/d. In 2026 it will be down to 3,267 kb/d. In 2030 it will be essentially 3,000 kb/d.

      One big difference between GHawar and the Permian is the decline rates. First year decline rates in Permian wells ranges between 50% and 70%

      A Gh

   3. Pămpălău Ciripescu

      11/13/2025

      Wasn’t Ghawar the one operated with salt water constantly under pressure… I fail to imagine how water and oil are going smooth in especially when water becomes more and more, part of this basin.

      Of course you don’t get useful models through imagination, you need numbers for that.

   4. Pămpălău Ciripescu

      11/13/2025

      Thanks for the insights.

3. Westexasfanclub

   11/13/2025

   First of all, thank you Ovid for your work! So the secondary peak surpasses the old one. And with a clear difference of almost 2.5 million barrels (averaged)! I hadn’t thought that, I must admit. This is a lot of new oil and it will have serious implications in many global aspects: pricing, growth … even armed conflicts. But how will it play out? Will the world have a relaxed growth phase till the end of the decade? Or will this new and unequal distributed potential become a leverage in actual and future conflicts? Will the world use the time to invest in energy transition? Or will those prevail who claim that oil is infinitely abundant and that peak oil (together with climate change) is a scam?

   1. DC

      11/13/2025

      West Texas Fan club,

      Probably a plateau around 84 to 86 Mb/d from 2026 to 2030 followed by gradually accelerating decline from 2030 to 2060 peaking at about 3% per year in 2070 or so. A fast transition to electric transport or potentially self driving taxis in the future could lead to a rapid drop in demand after 2040 which might lead to more rapid drops in output than 3% per year if such a scenario actually plays out. Waymo is already a thing and if they can get costs down and turn a profit they might expand rapidly.

   2. DC

      11/13/2025

      My WAG based in part on the recent STEO (used that estimate for 2025 and 2026 output in this scenario). This, like all my other scenarios, is certain (probability 100%) to be wrong. This scenario assumes the EV transition is either very slow or non-existent and ignores the possibility of self driving vehicles becoming widespread. In my view these are both poor assumptions and output is likely to be lower after 2030 due to less World demand for oil than shown in this scenario.

      Click link below for chart.

      oil shock 2511

   3. Ovi

      11/13/2025

      Westexasfanclub

      Thanks. Much appreciated.

      The question you seem to be asking is how much new oil is there to be discovered. According to the attached article 5 Mboes were discovered in 2023, of which 3Mb were oil. The big oil fields I think have been discovered, the latest being in Kazakhstan and Guyana. So I think the ability to exceed 87 Mb/d, if it is required, will come from extracting more oil from the known oil fields.

      The classic example is Ghawar in the sense it might have been one of the first to use horizontal drilling and water injection. When there was only vertical wells and no water injection. the maximum amount of oil that could be extracted from an oil field was around 33%. With horizontal drilling, water injection and the addition chemicals, I recall reading that some people expect that over 60% of the oil will be extracted from Ghawar.

      Another example is Argentina which is now using fracking to get oil out of the Vaca Muerta, a field that was known but producing little.

      This morning Chevron says it expects upside to current estimated oil resource in Guyana.

      “Chevron said on Wednesday it expects that a prolific oilfield in Guyana could hold more than the current estimate of 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent in recoverable resources. “When you think about 11 billion barrels, big fields getting bigger, although we haven’t forecast it, I would expect upside,” Chevron Vice Chairman Mark Nelson said at the company’s investor day in New York City.”

      https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Global-Oil-and-Gas-Discoveries-Fell-to-a-Record-Low-in-2023.html

      https://boereport.com/2025/11/12/chevron-says-it-expects-upside-to-current-estimated-oil-resource-in-guyana/

   4. DC

      11/13/2025

      On Guyana note that it is 11 Gboe, not clear how much is oil and how much is gas and NGL.

      Found link below with chart from Rystad suggesting most of the discovery in Guyana since 2015 is liquids approximately 90%.

      https://oilnow.gy/featured/guyana-tops-rankings-in-total-oil-discovered-since-2015-rystad/

4. Iver

   11/13/2025

   Ovi

   Thanks for the great info.
   The new production high is not too much of a surprise considering how much oil OPEC is dumping onto the market.

   Your CMA, what dates are you going from and to?

   1. DC

      11/13/2025

      Iver,

      Here is another estimate using International and STEO data. I look at trend of World minus US condensate from August 2003 to July 2025 and extrapolate to December 2026. Then US C+C is added to the World less US C+C estimate, the centered 12 month average (CTMA) is shown in the chart, peak is March 2026 (average for Sept 2025 to August 2026) at 85373 kb/d. The last CTMA data point using no STEO estimates is 82838 kb/d (February 2025).

      world cc 2511

   2. Iver

      11/13/2025

      Dennis

      Thanks. So according to the EIA of actual production we have a new global peak month.
      Once August and September come in, we will almost certainly have a new peak 12 month record and then 2025 will probably be a new record also.

      I would not count anything after that.
      Many Russian oil facilities could be in ashes by the middle of next year. Ukraine is hitting them now because Europe has been able to shift its imports from Russian oil and gas to other countries. I think Ukraine has waited for Europe to sort out its energy needs and also build enough long range drones.

   3. Ovi

      11/13/2025

      Iver

      Thanks. Much appreciated.

      The CMA shown is a 12 month average. It starts in January 2018 at 81,846 kb/d and covers the months July 2017 to June 2018. The last data point is for July 2026 at 85,376 kb/d and covers January 2026 to December 2026.

      I actually do not believe the current July peak is 84,726 kb/d. Today’s IEA report claims Russia is producing 9,280 kb/d of crude. I think it is safe to knock 1,500 kb/d off of that.

      https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-november-2025

   4. DC

      11/13/2025

      Ovi,

      The STEO has Russian Crude at the values below for Jan 2025 to Oct 2025 in Mb/d

      8.97, 8.96, 8.96, 9.05, 9.05, 9.05, 9.15, 9.15, 9.25, 9.25

      IEA has Russian Crude at 9.28 Mb/d in Sept and October.

      Chart below uses Russian crude from STEO and Russian C+C from International Statistics at EIA to find Russian Condensate from Jan 2020 to July 2025. Click on link for chart.

      russian condensate 2511

   5. Iver

      11/13/2025

      Dennis and Ovi

      The OPEC data on refinery throughput gives some idea of production., but Russian production is a state secret so who knows exactly is anyone’s guess.

      Price is also a reasonable indicator. Also driving around, the roads have never been busier. Aviation is claiming all time high passenger numbers. So all in all I am sure global consumption is at an all time high.

   6. Ovi

      11/13/2025

      Dennis

      My point is that I don’t believe the Russian numbers from OPEC, IEA or EIA. I don’t believe that Russian production is not being affected by all of the Ukrainian bombing.

   7. DC

      11/13/2025

      Ovi,

      I agree we cannot be confident of Russian output numbers. Keep in mind that most of the Ukrainian attacks are on refineries and ports, neither of these affect oil produced directly, though if storage facilities fill up because oil cannot be refined or exported then it might reduce the amount of oil produced.

      It makes sense to me to use the data we have even though imperfect.

   8. Alimbiquated

      11/14/2025

      One point to consider is that so far Ukraine mostly seems to be targeting refining facilities, and some distribution of refined products, not crude production.

   9. Lads

      11/14/2025

      At this moment both the Novorossiysk and Tuapse exports terminals are shut in. That is a loss of at least 2 Mb/d in crude exports plus an uncertain figure for oil products. Now there is only one large export terminal operating in the country, Ust-Luga in the Baltic.

      This is a similar situation to GDP figures. The Kremlin continues to report economic growth, but official data on the job market and the banking system clearly point to a recession.

      Maybe one day all these phoney Kremlin numbers will be revised, and 2025 will no longer appear levelled with 2018 on world crude oil extration.

   10. DC

       11/14/2025

       Lads,

       Very possible the data will be revised. We can only guess. Note that production would be expected to fall in response to oil not being exported. It is also possible the oil will be redirected to the Baltic Port and exported from there. Though there will no doubt be capacity limitations which may reduce the total that can be exported, in that case we would expect Russian crude production would be reduced as storage facilities become full.

       Note that this mostly affects future crude oil output. So far based on oil prices there is plenty of oil supply at the global level.

   11. Iver

       11/15/2025

       Lads

       Ukraine had started to increase strikes on Russian oil facilities since August. Russia had considerable spare capacity to refine oil and export oil and products.

       https://www.reuters.com/world/ukrainian-drones-damage-ship-dwellings-oil-depot-russias-novorossiysk-2025-11-14/

       I think now the attacks are starting to bit into refining capacity and export capacity.

       I think July and August and probably September are new all time global highs.

       Russian oil refining capacity will probably start to fall if Ukraine can continue to hit the plants. They obviously need to hit the export facilities at an increased level.

       Perhaps we will see Russian production reduced by 2 or 3mb/d next year?

5. gerry maddoux

   11/13/2025

   To get a pretty good explanation for improved performance from American shale despite fewer rigs, google a company called ShearFRAC. I imagine there are others like them. What they are doing is very impressive, and is moving closer each day to autonomous fracking. I never would have believed it but their algorithms save the 2nd most precious commodity in the shale basins: water. In the whole process of moving toward autonomous fracking, however, they’re sacrificing the single most precious commodity in the shale: well-trained, hard-working men.

   Whether you love or hate the concept of busting up source rock to get at the oil, horizontal drilling and fracking is going global. The Saudis are using it, as are Oman, Bahrain, even Egypt and Israel. And of course, the Vaca Meurta in Argentina. Most of its use in the Middle East is in developing massive NG fields.

   There are few industries that showcase the marvels of machine learning using deep neural pathways like horizontal drilling and fracking: from drilling (sometimes counterintuitively) down the best part of the shale bench, to analyzing the matrix of the shale and planning frack stages, to autonomous trucking. As this goes global, prices could be suppressed for a very long time. This wave of fracking around the globe is still in its early stages. But it’s truly the thing nobody saw coming. And it appears to be catching on fast.

   I don’t like fracking. It requires too much water and is a long run for a short slide (much work and expense for such a steep decline). If you own a WI in a suite of wells and the price is low for the flush, you may never recover your investment–the decline is that fast. However, with conventional E&D becoming an extinct concept, it’s mostly what the world is left with. The Middle East has seethed at what they saw happening in the Permian. They thought all that frenzy would exhaust itself, kill itself off via massive investments that often resulted in a black hole, or at least stop because of seismic quakes close to SWD’s. When that didn’t end it, they must have thought that the bleak returns from thousands of child wells that produced maybe two-thirds of what their parent well produced would surely kill it. None of that happened. So, in the twilight of the shale basins of the United States, the concept has taken flight.

   We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

6. Hickory

   11/13/2025

   Saudi in 2018- “or was it a realization that World demand was going to peak shortly” [Ovi]

   Perhaps they did see it on the horizon.

7. Hickory

   11/13/2025

   Argentina will be up to 1 Mbpd in a few years-

   “According to global consulting agency McKinsey and Company, the Vaca Muerta possesses characteristics that make it equal to or in some cases superior to U.S. shale plays. The formation’s thickness is superior to the Eagle Ford and Bakken while being equivalent quality-wise to the Permian Basin, which is pumping 6.6 million barrels per day, making it the United States’ largest oil-producing region.

   The Vaca Muerta shale has higher organic content than the Eagle Ford, whose reservoir pressure is comparable to the Permian Basin. Those attributes make exploiting the Vaca Muerta a lucrative activity.

   You see, wells drilled in the shale play enjoy high productivity rates, which in many cases are superior to wells in U.S. shale formations. As a result, drillers in the Vaca Muerta enjoy a low breakeven price. It is estimated that the geological formation breaks even at between $36 and $45 per barrel. This makes the Vaca Muerta in the current low-price environment, with the international Brent benchmark trading at around $63 per barrel, profitable to drill. This is significantly lower than Argentina’s conventional oilfields, where production breaks even at $55 to $75 per barrel.

   Earlier this year, the CEO of Argentina’s national oil company YPF, Horacio Marin, claimed the driller is profitable at $40 per barrel of oil. He further asserted that at $45 per barrel, YPF can profitably develop the entire Vaca Muerta…”

   https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Argentinas-Vaca-Muerta-Shale-Is-Smashing-Oil-Production-Records-in-2025.html

   1. Pămpălău Ciripescu

      11/13/2025

      I see the success of fracking in US is driven by the fact that US is a highly industrialised country that had plenty of capital. There are other places on earth with better shales that lost a lot of money.

      Just like AI, it looks like it doesn’t scale for smaller countries…

   2. DC

      11/13/2025

      Hickory,

      A lot of these CEOs are hypsters, they claim the Permian also has very low breakevens, but in reality many Permian focused companies are burning cash to make their income statements look better. Hey they can borrow money from the US, so not a problem. In 5 years Argentina’s shale oil production increased from 100 to 500 kb/d. The EIA (which tends to be optimistic) estimates 16 Gb of TRR for C+C in Vaca Muerta, this likely means about 2/3 of that in economically recoverable resources, perhaps 11 Gb, similar in size to Bakken/Three Forks. That peaked at about 1.4 Mb/d and perhaps that will be achieved in Argentina over the next 10 years or so. A 2023 forecast by Rystad had Vaca Muerta reaching 1 Mb/d by 2030.

      Chart linked below has Argentina’s C+C from Jan 1985 to July 2025.

      argentina 2511

   3. Sheng Wu

      11/15/2025

      I did a comparison of VM with US major shale oil and gas patches back in January, 2025
      https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/comparing-vaca-muerta-shale-oil-gas-best-us-patches-production-wu-tw42c

      here, one could dig further about VM on each well.
      https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNDQ1OGQ4MGMtYmQyYi00NzYxLWFlNTMtOGI0ZjRhZGE4NTBkIiwidCI6IjVmMThiN2ZhLTdmMmQtNDQ5ZC1hZjhkLTliZTNiM2ViZmFhYSJ9
      or an overall picture from Argentina government sources,
      http://hidrocarburos.energianeuquen.gov.ar/trabajo
      It seems that the EUR for VM oil laterals could feasibly reach 600KBO in volatile block, and over 800KBO in low GOR black shale oil blocks. If the drilling and completions cost are similar to US, then the cost could be just half or even less in Low GOR black shale oil blocks. Note that >10 years ago, the forecast gave almost zero TRR for the low GOR black shale oil blocks, which now account for more TRR oil than the forecast >10 years ago, see my other article,
      https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/low-gor-black-shale-oil-news-from-vaca-muerta-rio-negro-sheng-wu-5fhpc

      some simple comparison numbers below:
      In September, 2025, there are 4,280 wells (conventional + unconventional + injector etc) total in VM.
      3,116 wells are for oil, and producing 506KBOPD, that is 162BOPD each well, and growing at ~20% per year. In 2023, according to NOVI there are 45,039 laterals in Permian producing 5.3million BOPD, or 117BOPD each well, and growing at about 10% back in July 2023.

      In Aug. 2025, there are 810 gas wells in VM, producing 77 million cubic meters gas and 40KBO per day, and that is 3.3MMCF gas and 50BO PD or 3.6MMCFe each well, increasing about 6% per annual for gas. Note that the fastest increase gas wells are those with high liquid and oil with rate much higher than WV Marcellus.
      In Jan. 2023, Pennsylvania has 11,173 laterals producing 20.3BCFPD, or about 1.9MMCFPD each well with flat or slightly lower production change, with oil and NGL discounted, that is about just over 2.0MMCFe PD per well.
      In 2023, WV has 2,944 H6A laterals producing over 2.7 TCF gas in 2023 or similar to VM, and also growing at about similar rate as VM, and averaging 2.5MMCFPD each well, and increasing about 10%., and also has oil+NGL at 136Million in 2023, or about 374K per day, or about 127 BLPD (barrel of liquid per day) per well. If we count the Barrel of Liquid at 3.2MCF/barrel of liquid, that is 2.9MMCFe PD each well in WV.

   4. DC

      11/15/2025

      Sheng Wu,

      Output per well tells us very little when we have tight oil wells with very high decline rates. Perhaps Vaca Muerta will take off, we will see. Note that if we look at only recent wells completed as of November 2023 for Permian Basin (completions in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023) there were 25356 wells completed with output of 5048 kbo/d in November 2023, about 199 bo/d per well. My guess is that most of the oil produced in the Vaca Muerta is from wells completed in the past 5 years as output increased from 100 kb/d to 500 kb/d over the past 5 years (Sept 2020 to Sept 2025).

   5. Hickory

      11/15/2025

      It looks to me like the VM shale will be developed much more slowly than the Permian has been, due to harder credit and less optimal support infrastructure. I have no idea how big output will eventually get to, but the duration of the climb and eventual high output levels will be much a more extended timeframe than for the Permian. Slow development is an attribute in my book.
      Bodes well for that country.

      Interesting to consider that Argentina ranks near the top of the list on arable land per person, along with Ukraine (roughly the same population size). Argentina luckily is much farther from any invader and has VM to draw on (and huge untapped solar/wind reserve). Canada, Kazakhstan and Australia also rank high on the arable land/person list.

   6. Sheng Wu

      11/16/2025

      DC,
      Amazing the Permian has almost 90% of the oil produced contributed from about half of the wells drilled and completed in the last 5~6 years. I guess it is because the newer wells have larger IP but faster decline that drive up this front loaded contributions.
      In VM, roughly 1400 oil wells are drilled after 2019, so also about half of the total oil wells. This also makes VM new 5 years wells BOPD goes up, assuming it also contribute to roughtly 90% of the total. But, here the situation is different. The VM pre-2019 wells are mostly high GOR light oil, and therefore the decline is closer to Permian before 2019 without much parent-child effects. The later wells in the low GOR medium gravity blocks have slower decline and more productive.

      Need sometime to see the outcome from both great shale basins.
      My guess is that Permian will see a fast decline if drilling drops fast due to obviously front loaded inflated EUR forecast.

   7. DC

      11/18/2025

      Sheng Wu,

      The fast well decline results in most of output coming from recent wells, this is true in every US tight oil basin. Chart at link below gives oil and gas well profile for average 2020 well along with EOR. At current oil and gas prices such a well reaches economic limits at about 165 months cumulative oil is 429 kb, and cumulative gas is 2 BCF. Over the life of the well (assumed to be 165 months) the average GOR is 4.65.

      permian 2020 2511

   8. DC

      11/19/2025

      X axis for that Permian 2020 well profile chart is months from first flow, forgot to label x-axis, sorry.

8. Iver

   11/14/2025

   It Stinks

   https://energyandcleanair.org/october-2025-monthly-analysis-of-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-and-sanctions/

   EU U.S. importing refined products from India and Turkey and everyone knows the refineries are using Russian crude.

   Tax payers are paying to destroy Russian oil and gas infrastructure while we have no choice buying Russian oil. That money then goes to repair the infrastructure we have paid to destroy.

   You couldn’t make this s**t up.

   And how can a shadow tanker not be sanctioned?

   1. DC

      11/14/2025

      Iver,

      Thanks for this link, interesting information.

      It is unfortunate that the US is doing such a poor job on this, seems that Putin may have some leverage over Trump, note that US is only enforcing a $60 sanction level on Russian crude while other nations (EU and other OECD nations are enforcing a $47.6/b price level. I agree this should be lowered further to $30/b and also no imports of Russian LNG or pipeline gas (or reduce these as much as is practical.)

   2. Alimbiquated

      11/14/2025

      we have no choice
      Mr Money Moustache says you can choose to cure your clownish oil consumption habits.

      https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown-like-car-habit/

   3. Iver

      11/14/2025

      DC

      From some very recent articles, it looks like India at least is cutting back on Russian oil. Tankers sitting around with nowhere to go.

      Also Russia had spare refining capacity so it will take some time for Ukraine to damage enough of it to impact oil production. They have to also hit more export terminals to prevent Russia from simply exporting what they cannot refine.

      We will see next year if they can really damage Putin where it hurts.

   4. kolbeinih

      11/14/2025

      I am all with Alimbiquated on this. Technology has delayed peak oil for some time. There is no real point to pressure for a higher peak in oil consumption.

      Oil is slippery, and energy can facility the production of goods that still can be transported all over the world (due to low oil prices and available LNG) of a fraction of the cost making them.

      As for EU importing like UK has done for centuries – naval nations can do exactly that. It is very difficult to control naval trade.

9. Ovi

   11/14/2025

   Rig Report for the Week Ending November 14

   The rig count drop that started in early April 2025 when 450 rigs were operating rose this week. Drilling continues at unabated rates with WTI at $60/b.

   – US Hz oil rigs added 1 to 367, down 83 since April 2025 when it was 450. It is also up 5 from the low of 362 in the week ending August 1. The rig count is down 18% since April.
   – New Mexico Permian added 3 to 95 while Texas dropped 1 rig to 175.

   – Texas Permian dropped 1 rig to 136. Midland added 1 to 24 while Martin added 3 to 21.
   – In New Mexico Eddy added 1 to 38 and Lea added 2 to 57.
   – Overall the four major counties added 7 rigs this week.
   – Eagle Ford dropped 1 rig to 28.
   – NG Hz rigs dropped by 3 to 109.

   A Rig

10. Ovi

    11/14/2025

    Frac Spread Report for the Week Ending November 14

    The frac spread count rose by 2 to 175. From one year ago, it is down 47 and down by 40 spreads since March 28. It is up 13 spreads from September 5.

    A frac

11. Iver

    11/15/2025

    A better than average video detailing what is going on in Putin’s war on Ukraine..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VuQ7dn8Jo

12. Hickory

    11/15/2025

    Its going to cost the US taxpayer a massive amount of money, and
    “Well, someone important finally said it.”

    ‘Bechtel Chief Says U.S. Must Subsidize Trump’s Nuclear Revival’

    https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Bechtel-Chief-Says-US-Must-Subsidize-Trumps-Nuclear-Revival.html

    While they have money/credit the AI big guys are ponying up some of the nuclear industry funding (at far above market pricing), but its going to take the Fed government funding to get the ball rolling at any sort of significant durable scale.

    1. Hickory

       11/15/2025

       Interestingly, Westinghouse is owned by a partnership between
       Brookfield Asset Management (51% stake) and Cameco Corporation (49% stake), both Canadian companies.
       “The Trump administration has launched an $80 billion strategic partnership with Westinghouse, Cameco, and Brookfield to build large-scale nuclear reactors”

    2. Nick G

       11/15/2025

       Nuclear power: such a bad idea. So expensive, so slow.

       And somehow everyone is still in denial about weapons proliferation. It’s at least as big a risk as climate change, or PO, or any other risk you might name. Nuclear war is still an existential threat, and people like Trump and Putin are making it much worse.

    3. Iver

       11/16/2025

       Hickory

       You seem to be stone deaf to the fact that the countries with the highest wind and solar have the highest electricity bills. Why is that?

    4. Nick G

       11/16/2025

       Iver,

       No one is going to pay any attention to claims like that (correlation of high renewables with high power prices) without some evidence.

       What are your sources for that argument? Where are you getting price and generation data?

    5. DC

       11/16/2025

       Iver,

       You may have the cart before the horse. It may be that nations with high electricity prices install more wind and solar in an attempt to bring down prices. In the US some of the states with the highest wind and solar penetration have very low electricity rates. Texas for example. The high electricity rates in many nations is due primarily to the high cost of natural gas.

    6. Nick G

       11/16/2025

       Dennis, Iver

       In some cases the correlation is caused by both being a result of careful energy management: California is the 4th largest economy. In the world, and they have high wind & solar, and their high electricity prices are a deliberate choice to incentivize efficient use of power (their per capita residential power consumption is much lower than Texas – less than 50%).

       Plus their marginal power prices are much higher for high consumption customers, but their average prices are much lower. Simple lists of prices can be very misleading.

       Which brings me back to my earlier point: before we debate a correlation between wind & solar and power prices, let’s see some evidence that the correlation actually exists. Someone needs to look at maybe the top 20 countries (by GDP or population) and gather price and generation mix data. I’d do it but I don’t have time at the moment.

13. Ovi

    11/15/2025

    A major oil terminal in the Russian port city of Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai temporarily suspended operations, approximately 2% of global exports, following Ukrainian attacks.

    That translates into World supply drop of 1,500 kb/d of C + C. which is close to the world’s current over supply. It will be interesting to watch the effect on the price of WTI.

    https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/11/15/russia-temporarily-suspends-oil-exports-from-novorossiysk-following-ukrainian-attack

    1. Alimbiquated

       11/16/2025

       Oil markets seem to be getting immune to political news.

    2. Iver

       11/16/2025

       Ovi

       Oil prices did go up a bit, but global inventories are very high at almost 8 billion barrels of crude and products.

       https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iea-sees-global-oil-supply-growth-driving-larger-market-glut-2025-11-13/#:~:text=The%20Paris%2Dbased%20IEA%20also,80%20million%20barrels%20in%20September.

       It will take a while to reduce that and unload all those tankers sitting around doing nothing.

14. Ovi

    11/15/2025

    Satellite images of damaged export facility

    According to Denys, it will take six months or more to repair the damage.

    Port damage starts at 3:50.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsqxsqQKuPk

15. Sheng+Wu

    11/17/2025

    this wetsite gives 2023 EUR for major US shale gas basins,
    https://incorrys.com/energy/natural-gas-supply/us-gas/estimated-ultimate-recovery-eur-for-major-us-gas-basins-2023/

    it is amazing that Marcellus SW has higher EUR than Marcellus NE and Utica

    1. DC

       11/17/2025

       For average 2020 PA Marcellus well, I get about 14.6 BCF. For all Appalachia Utica wells in 2018 I get about 12.6 BCF, based on Novi data. So those estimates seem a bit on the high side, though if I look at best NE county in PA it might be as high as 18 BCF for 2020 wells. In 2020 most of the Point Pleasant(Utica) formation wells were completed in Ohio(86), the few wells completed in PA (4) and WV (7) had lower cumulative output at 13 months with OH=5.6 BCF, and WV and PA at about 4 BCF. Not a lot of Point Pleasant/Utica wells completed in WV only 10 from 2010 to 2021 vs 1829 wells competed in Marcellus formation. As of Dec 2020 in Marcellus formation about 9635 wells had been completed in PA, 2903 wells in WV, and only 34 Marcellus wells in OH. About 2545 Point Pleasant wells were completed in OH from Jan 2010 to Dec 2020.

    2. Coffeeguyzz

       11/17/2025

       Sheng Wu/Dennis,

       The higher SWPA versus NEPA EURs might be explained by that site’s ‘Vertical Depth/Lateral Length’ graphic that is referenced in that posted graphic.
       SWPA has ~11,000 foot laterals while NEPA looks like ~9,000 footers.
       The Land Grab frenzy was particularly acute in NEPA pre 2010 and contiguous undeveloped acreage has become more scarce (supposedly the big reason for Cabot to be sold to Cimarex).
       This continues to manifest as the peak of ultra high IP wells has been receding somewhat.

       Dennis, your economic analysis of Utica wells last post was – as is the norm – both sincere and hilarious.
       While you will certainly continue to disbelieve the (admittedly hyped) info put forth on quarterly presentations, note that EOG just claimed a less-than-$650/foot D&C cost for their Utica wells … so under $6,500,000 for a 10,000 footer.
       They claim the costs are recovered in the first 9 1/2 months online.

       Oh, final note to the ‘Expanding Appalachian Basin footprint’ narrative …
       Seneca just announced that 3 years of analysis/delineation in their vast Tioga county holdings, reveals an Upper and Lower Utica resource is present here.
       Seems like the 300 foot thick productive zone has a frac barrier within that enables fracturing to occur both above and below with no communication.
       Consequently, Seneca has more than doubled it’s expected future well count to over 400 wells with EURs of 2.5 Bcf per 1,000 foot lateral.
       Do the math.
       They also claimed to have almost 20 years of economically viable inventory at $2/mmbtu.

       I fully expect one of the bigger ‘surprises’ to emerge in the coming years from the AB is how large and – relatively – productive the fringe areas will become throughout this region.
       After poring over ~300 well profiles in these long-forgotten areas, it becomes apparent that an umpteen number of ~15,000 foot long, <7,000 foot deep wells drilled and frac'd with current practices at – say – $4/mmbtu, will most certainly be developed.
       I'm saying this based upon well histories located within 2 miles of both the NYS and West Virginia state lines … about 160 miles apart.

       Appalachia Rising!

    3. DC

       11/17/2025

       Coffeeguyzz,

       I use the capital employed divided by wells completed, which gives the true cost of the well, this looks at real data from the 10Q, rathere than believing the hype. You should try it. I also look at the net revenue after all costs are deducted to get am idea of cash flow. The rate of return on these wells is not very good at today’s prices. Claims to the contrary are incorrect. A 4% annual ROI doesn’t cut it for a risky investment like a shale gas well. Feel free to invest in these companies, the S&P 500 is a better, safer investment in my opinion (typical long term real rate of return about 6.8% per year). The nominal annual rate of return from 1957 to Aug 2025 is about 10.5% per year.

       The 25 BCF EUR (assuming 10k lateral, is very unlikely). Over the first 10 years the 4 2021 wells Seneca completed in tioga are likely to produce about 16.4 BCF each. The net revenue is about a third of the HH price so about $1.33/MCF. So $21 million over 10 years for a 15k well that cost $9.75 million, so 21/9.75=2.15 ROI over 10 years which is an 8% annual rate of return, deduct the 2.5% rate of inflation to get a 5.5% annual real rate of return and you don’t match the long term real rate of return for S&P 500.

       Also note that well quality will diminish over time, these wells are likely as good as it gets. We will see what happens over time. The Tioga Utica wells in 2021 were about 3 times higher than the average in PA for cumulative output at 16 months (only about 29 wells were completed in the Utica for all of PA in 2021 with the bulk completed in Elk county (17 of 29 wells). Those wells on average were less than a third of the cumulative output of the Tioga Utica wells and are likely more typical of the average Utica well in PA.

    4. DC

       11/18/2025

       From https://incorrys.com/energy/natural-gas-supply/us-gas/us-dry-gas-production-forecast-to-2040/

       US dry natural gas increases from 94 BCF/d to 118 BCF/d from 2025 to 2040 in this forecast or about 1.5% per year on average over 15 years. If we leave out the “other non-associated gas” the increase from 2025 to 2040 is about 1% per year and may be a reasonable forecast with a peak in 2037. If we assume other non-associated gas declines at 6% per year (it was 23% per year from 2015 to 2024) the peak is 2037 at 107 BCF/d, about 13 BCF/d higher than in 2025.

       The Other Non-Associated Gas forecast after 2025 looks like wishful thinking, they may have forecasted demand and just filled in missing gas from “other” non-associated gas sources. Note how it decreased from 2010 to 2025, this is not likely to reverse from 2025 to 2040 as shown in chart linked below.

       us gas

    5. Coffeeguyzz

       11/18/2025

       Dennis,

       ” … the peak is 2037 … about 13 BCF/d higher than in 2025″.
       Man o man, Dennis. That is one of the all time knee slappers right there.
       You might want to get ahold of all those operators currently building out LNG plants since they have committed ~100 billion dollahs to plants Already. Under. Construction. which will require an additional ~14 Bcfd in the next 4 years alone.
       (About $15 billion is in FID stage, bumping up the required feedstock an additional 2 Bcfd).
       You jes might save those boys a heap of malinvested moola.

       Then, throw in the projected 100 Gigawatts (higher end estimate) of new gas-fired juice slated to come on by ~2030 to satiate our new buddy chatbot’s voracious appetite for electricity.
       Thatsa ~14 Bcfd more right there.

       Shoot, Dennis, we might just need those fart-capturing contraptions that fit on cattle to capture that ebil, ebil methane after all jes to keep our lights on.

    6. DC

       11/18/2025

       Coffeeguyzz,

       Not my forecast, maybe less LNG gets exported than capacity of LNG facilities or US natural gas consumption decreases so more can be exported. Perhaps the very high resource estimates that you believe without question, prove to be incorrect. Time will answer these questions.

       Note that many investments do not pan out. LNG may prove to be one of those. We will see.

       The other non associated gas historically decreased from about 33 BCF/s in 2010 to 2.5 BCF/d in 2024, so my modification of the forecast was to assume a 6% decline in other non-associated gas far less than the roughly 20% annual rate of decline from 2010 to 2024. That is the only part of the forecast modified by me.

16. Iver

    11/17/2025

    Where are those Peak Oil Cassandras of 2008.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Floating-Oil-Storage-Surge-Puts-Market-Balance-on-Edge.html

    Saudi Arabia is not down to 7 mb/d, The U.K. North Sea is not producing zero, Russia is not producing 6 mb/d.

    Fact is nobody knows the URR globally, nor do they know at what point production starts to fall, it could be 50% or 60% depending on the technology used. Decline rates could be as high as 4%. Followed by a long tail of decreasing production.

17. Hickory

    11/17/2025

    Iver asks why countries with lots of solar and wind have high electricity prices, as if utilization of those sources of electricity result in high prices. I’ll point out a few things in regard to this question/assertion.

    First, perhaps it would be cheapest to just use whatever domestic coal or gas a country has. At least until it runs out. Or to just import these fuels from the lowest price exporter, while those supplies are available (like Europe was doing with nat gas from Russia). But lets remind everyone that fossils supplies will decline, and that relying on imports is a dangerous game especially for a critical item like fuel…fuel that is depleting.

    Secondly, make no mistake- the investment required to come up with other sources of energy is high, requiring lots of capital/credit upfront- A point I had made loud and clear in past years, and obvious to anyone who follows these issues. Hydroelectric dams and generating facilities, nuclear power stations/uranium supply chain, transmission grid buildout and upgrades, offshore drilling rigs, refineries, LNG handling facilities, ports and ocean cargo capability, photovoltaic and wind generating equipment, grid battery storage are all examples of high-cost features of a countries electrical supply system. None of it is cheap, and to adapt to changing (depleting and unstable) supplies of Coal and Nat Gas will absolutely require lot and lots of money, which certainly will be reflected in consumer bills.

    The initial costs of hydroelectric, nuclear, solar, and wind is very high, however each these systems eventually pays off the initial investment with earnings so that in later years the averaged price (levelized 30+ year cost) becomes lower. Same applies to offshore oil drilling, if the project is successful, or building a refinery or LNG compression facility.

    In the longer term the most expensive option is to just rely on domestic fossil fuels, without making the transition effort to diversify the electricity source. Each country and utility will have different answers. For many that answer right now is solar, with ‘Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems accounted for over 70% of global electricity capacity additions in 2024, making it the dominant source of new power installations.’
    Those utility operators around the world are in the long game. Luckily for folks like you Iver, and I.

    Btw- in the US Iowa has the highest percentage of wind energy supply (over 60%)- with average rates. Texas has high levels of wind and solar- with average rates.

    1. DC

       11/17/2025

       Hickory,

       I think the electricity rates are below average in Iowa and Texas, based on this website

       https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/

       US average 15.83 cents per kWh, Texas=12.27, Iowa=14.45.

18. Iver

    11/17/2025

    Hickory

    I was really making the statement in response to your comment that nuclear would cost people lots of money. When Germany had lots of nuclear energy, electricity prices were low.

    When it comes to levelized costs, it is not just the cost of producing the electricity that matters. Where does the coal come from? If, as in many places in China and India, the coal is right next to the power station, then it will be very cheap.

    If however the coal has to be imported from another country hundreds of miles away then it will be more expensive. Not only that but there are security concerns and also a balance of trade issue.

    It makes sense for China to build lots of wind and solar and nuclear and hydro to reduce their dependence on imported coal.

    The Chinese dictatorship doesn’t care about global warming they care about ensuring jobs, foods energy for the population which would otherwise rise up against them.

    The most stupid thing to do is shut down coal power stations while you have vast amounts of cheap coal to mine. Sure build solar and wind where it is best suited to reduce coal and gas consumption. However extremists have forced the closure of power stations while battery storage is still horrendously expensive. Millions of people are now unable to heat their house properly. Thousands die in the U.K. each week during winter, because people who are constantly cold and undernourished are prone to getting serious illnesses. Green extremists don’t care about them, they only care about green targets.

    Electricity prices are determined by ALL factors not just what produces the most. Iowa has a large amount of coal production which can ramp up when needed. So wind is great as long as you have a cheap flexible backup like coal. That is the best of all worlds.

    Texas has vast amounts of cheap readily dispatch able gas, so prices are kept low. Also the U.S. has 4 time zones so peak demand happens at different times and there is a lot of imports from State to State. Another factor which can reduce price.

    Fact remains shutting down coal plants and nuclear before you need to and costs rocket.

    https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/brits-pay-electricity-compared-other-163000142.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACqbd4i9JZ784x9tcxF7PM0it72pPhcgsTjAWq_nOPqLGbngZ8FlBGHiMmyX8KcqqaYuO5Wm8guDjKbVEuEfDcF7M59IDJBw4Lo0uUaw2PK6LhmrYMYoo13KW0vBeYKAhlTi2ZjBtxJSEvzq77iOJ8RzdAF7u2UttIcd6qoUZ9Rp

    China burns 4.8 billion tonnes of coal, ensuring global temperatures will go way above what can be adapted to.

    1. Laplander

       11/17/2025

       Well, I think you Germany had a natgas pipeline, or actually several from somewhere?
       But somone blew it up, several suspects atm. but qui bono?

    2. Hickory

       11/17/2025

       This is going to very tragic for people as well Iver-
       “Feb 3, 2025 — Climate change will shrink U.S. home values by $1.47 trillion over the next three decades, driven by soaring insurance costs and an exodus…”

       This applies to every country, some much more. And doesn’t include the costs to commercial/industrial sites, or a nations infrastructure. Most nations have ports, rail, highways, substations, water treatment facilities and pump stations,and subways that are going to be much prone to flooding, as the Mass Combustion rolls on.

    3. Nick G

       11/17/2025

       Hickory,

       I actually find that surprisingly low. The total value of US residential real estate is $55T, so 1.5 is less than 3%. I imagine that part of the reason it’s so low is that losses near the coasts will be balanced by increases further away, as migrants from the coast buy inland.

       The scary thing is for the relatively small minority of home owners who are below average income but have legacy homes near coastlines. They have paper gains and probably have been counting on them for retirement, and they may lose those paper gains.

       No one who isn’t able to absorb a big loss should buy near the sea. OTOH, it seems like there are a surprisingly high number of high income people who are willing to take the risk, and can afford to.

       Florida has astonishingly expensive homeowners insurance even now – it balances out the lack of income tax (though FL’s low taxes means that FL education is just terrible, and crime is very high – somehow retirees manage to ignore that).

    4. Nick G

       11/17/2025

       ” If, as in many places in China and India, the coal is right next to the power station, then it will be very cheap.”

       Not really. Even local coal has a hard time competing in the US – that’s why US coal consumption has fallen by more than 50% from it’s peak.

       Coal is far, far too expensive – GHG cost is only a small part of the external cost of coal: it includes occupational health, particulate, mercury and sulfur emissions, local costs for handling sludge, etc., etc.

       ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
       Issue: Ecological Economics Reviews
       FULL COST ACCOUNTING FOR THE LIFE CYCLE OF COAL
       Our comprehensive review finds that the best estimate for the total economically quantifiable costs, based on a conservative weighting of many of the study findings, amount to some $345.3 billion, adding close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated from coal. The low estimate is $175 billion, or over 9¢/kWh, while the true monetizable costs could be as much as the upper bounds of $523.3 billion, adding close to 26.89¢/kWh. These and the more difficult to quantify externalities are borne by the general public.

       Still these figures do not represent the full societal and environmental burden of coal. In quantifying the damages, we have omitted the impacts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals on ecological systems and diverse plants and animals; some ill-health endpoints (morbidity) aside from mortality related to air pollutants released through coal combustion that are still not captured; the direct risks and hazards posed by sludge, slurry, and CCW impoundments; the full contributions of nitrogen deposition to eutrophication of fresh and coastal sea water; the prolonged impacts of acid rain and acid mine drainage; many of the long-term impacts on the physical and mental health of those living in coal-field regions and nearby MTR sites; some of the health impacts and climate forcing due to increased tropospheric ozone formation; and the full assessment of impacts due to an increasingly unstable climate. The true ecological and health costs of coal are thus far greater than the numbers suggest. Accounting for the many external costs over the life cycle for coal-derived electricity conservatively doubles to triples the price of coal per kWh of electricity generated.
       http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/epstein_full%20cost%20of%20coal.pdf

    5. Sheng Wu

       11/18/2025

       Cheap and high quality coal along with high quality iron ore is the key for any serious industrialization, to provide cheap power and high quality coke. The UK’s Manchester, Germany’s Ruhr, Appalachian and China’s NorthEast, are the coal foundations for steel. South America has lots of natural resources, but lack the high quality and cheap coal.

    6. Hickory

       11/18/2025

       “high quality coal” for steel manufacture (Anthracite) is about 14% of global coal combustion.

       The vast majority of coal is generally of much lesser carbon content, and can be substituted by other sources of heat when available.

19. Iver

    11/18/2025

    Nick G

    You are an uktra left wing brain washed individual.

    The type who works for Greenpeace and only knows how to clamber onto power stations and destroy real jobs for real people. You know how to increase electricity prices so real people die of cold.

    I have talked with these Mor ons.

    China you Mor on burns the most coal of any country to produce electricity, it burns as much in a year as The U.K. will in 800!,

    And their electricity is 1/7 the price of the U.K.

    I really hate people who are told truth jet see something totally different. It is a mental illness.

    I remember you contradicting an expert here with your zero informed opinions. They are gone and unfortunately you are not. People like you drag the conversation down to the lowest level of gut emotions and creed ideology.

    1. Ron Patterson

       11/18/2025

       If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.
       Elbert Hubbard

    2. Iver

       11/18/2025

       Ron

       Any mor on can have an argument. What takes us forward is actual data and facts. Which he has none.

       I mentioned China and India and how their vast burning of cheap coal is producing very cheap electricity. The data is out there for all to see. I posted global electricity costs. The highest prices are all linked to the highest wind and solar output PERCENTAGE WISE.

       saying not really, is not part of an intelligent conversation.

       An expert on this site explained why the costs of wind and solar are so high. Including massive build out of the grid, not previously needed. Over production of electricity that can’t be sold. Very high costs of storage. Very little production often at high demand times.

       Nick G does not have facts just an ideology. Ideology destroys fruitful discussion that’s why the expert does not bother here any more. We are all losers for that.

    3. DC

       11/18/2025

       Iver,

       It is fine to disagree, but name calling does very little to support your argument. There can be many reasons for high electricity prices, one of them is high fossil fuel cost. This is the main reason for high electricity prices in Europe, along with public policy for higher cost to promote efficient use of energy.

       Note that Texas and Iowa in the US have the highest percentage of their electricity supplied by wind and/or solar of any of the US states. Their electricity prices are below the national average.

       Also keep in mind that correlation is not always linked to causation. Are electricity prices high because of large amounts of wind and solar? Perhaps there are large amounts of wind and solar produced in nations where electricity prices are high.

20. Anonymous

    11/18/2025

    At oil wells, oil tends to decline much faster than associated gas does. Both do decline. But the oil declines faster, leading to the GTO ratio to increase. What this means is that if drilling is sufficient to keep oil flat in a play (or plateaued or slight decline), than associated gas from the play will grow strongly.

    Consider North Dakota (proxy for the Bakken, an “oil play”):

    oil production: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpnd1&f=a

    natural gas production: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9050nd2A.htm (marketed, but dry is similar albiet missing a 2024 data point.)

    Compare 2015 to 2024. The oil production is nearly identical. 430 MM BO went to 437, about a 2% increase. However natural gas went up strongly. 471 BCF went to 1,194, about a 156% increase. The gas to oil ratio more than doubled over a less than ten year period, where oil was flattish.

    This is why Dennis’s implicit argument (hope/cope) that Permian associated gas will decline as the Permian oil production declines is wrong. We’ve already seen what happened in the Bakken. Oil and associated gas are not linearly dependent. GTO ratio will increase strongly over time.

    There is a reason why several different big companies are spending billions of dollars to build gas pipelines from the Permian to the Gulf. Hint: they project more gas. And they aren’t just talk, talking on a website. They are putting money on their bets. Heck, the operators signing up for multiyear contracts are ALSO putting money on the bet.

    1. DC

       11/18/2025

       Nony,

       I account for that in my model. Note that new wells being drilled keeps the GOR relatively steady (slight increase from 4 to 5 in 2034 and to 7 by 2048).

       Here is the Permian Gas model corresponding to my 52 Gb Permian tight oil scenario (140k total wells completed). See link below, URR=230 TCF.

       You are correct that there is some increase, but it is much less than you believe, from 24 BCF/d in August 2024 to a peak of 25.7 BCF/d in Sept 2032.

       Note that the gas model uses the average Permian well gas profile convolved with completion rate, the same method used for the tight oil models. Potentially there could be a shift in GOR for the average well over time. I assume it remains similar to the average 2020 Permian well, this assumption may be wrong.

       permian gas 2511

    2. Laplander

       11/18/2025

       The GTO ratio is very interesting, but we also need to keep attention to kWhs availible/capita.
       Anyway, crude may actually be declining while condensate (and NG/LNG by more or less default) are increasing so C&C still looks “good”.
       But I think GTO can give valuable hints about the future, so a very interesting metric, thanks for that.

       Btw. I changed the unit from BTUs/capita initially in my post to kWhs/capita since I think it is a much more understandable metric in my view.

    3. DC

       11/18/2025

       Chart with Permian tight oil, shale gas, and GOR at link below.

       permian gor2511

    4. DC

       11/18/2025

       Bakken oil, gas, and GOR at chart linked below

       bakken gor

    5. Sheng Wu

       11/18/2025

       DC,
       Nice plots for oil, gas and GOR for Bakken and Permian!!!
       wonder why Bakken’s GOR is not increasing obviously as Permian but slowed in the past 3 years?

    6. DC

       11/18/2025

       Sheng Wu,

       Thanks, I do not know why but note that Bakken GOR increased by a factor of 4 or more ( from 0.5 to over 2) while Permian increased by less than a factor of 2 over the 2012 to 2025 period. Perhaps slower completion rates reduced the rate of increase in GOR. I would have to play with my model to see if this happens.

       Here is the GOR vs month from first flow for average 2020 Permian well used in my model. see link below

       permian 2020 gor

    7. Anonymous

       11/19/2025

       Dennis:

       As an individual well ages, it’s GOR increases. If you have sufficient drilling to keep oil production constant (or close to constant…bumpy plateau…slow decline…or even slow increase), that means that the average well age increases. So, the GOR increases because the average age is increasing. This is the most important primary factor and is shown very strongly in the Bakken, where gas has more than doubled, alongside a flattish (bumpy) oil profile.

       In the Permian, there are other aspects going on (but start with the primary factor):
       (1) Shift in emphasis to the Delaware, which is gassier. [To some extent this happened in the Bakken also as low prices drove remaining highgraded drilling to the core, which is higher oil volume, but also higher GOR…but at this point, the Bakken core is close to drilled out…so it’s just not as substantial an effect as in the Delaware drilling rush, still occurring in the Permian.)
       (2) Gas-prone formations exist in the Permian (it is a very complex hydrocaron basin, with variations in both the plane directions as well as depth) such as the Delaware (and even Midland) Barnett strata as well as fringe areas like the Alpine High–not being drilled yet, but available if Waha prices support…if pipes need volume (right now, not needed…the opposite, actually…but this potential makes egress pipelines a safer prospect as volume is still available in the 2040+ if ass gas declines. It is a rearward looking, curve following, peak oiler argument to say we don’t see gas directed drilling in the Permian therefore it could not exist. The economics/pipes don’t support it now. Of course that does not mean it will prove out. But you need to retain an open mind and look at geology, not recent production history.

       Some of the other reasons why Permian behaves different from Bakken. (GOR growing but not as dramatically.)
       (1) Permian wells in general are already gassier than Bakken wells. Bakken is an oilier play. So…harder to grow GOR as much when it already started out so high. IOW, Bakken has grown GOR more, but still has a much lower absolute GOR to the Permian.
       (2) Permian is still growing. Not flatlining like the Bakken. More recent high oil volume wells.
       (3) Different legacy production profile (of oil and gas). Larger baseload of pre shale low decline oil and gas volumes in the Permian than the Bakken. I’m not sure which direction this drives the difference, but something to consider, and it is admittedly maybe a contrary point to 2, above.

    8. Anonymous

       11/19/2025

       It’s a similar dynamic going on in the Permian and the Bakken, re GOR, but of course there are differences.

       Yes, GOR (start to finish) has grown faster in the Bakken. But it is still much lower on an absolute basis than the Permian. I mean if Permian went up 50% GOR in the same time frame that Bakken GOR went up 100%, it sounds like the gassiness of the Bakken exploded. But if you consider starting GOR was so much lower in the Bakken, the added gassiness was more in the Permian. Consider 2 going to 4 versus 10 going to 15. That’s adding 2 in the Bakken, versus adding 5 in the Permian. [Not exact numbers, but the point applies.] And this is even ignoring how much larger the oil production in the Permian is.

       Ignoring the GOR increase in the Permian as the average wells age, will tend to underestimate gas production. You can’t simply consider Permian to be ass gas and that when oil flatlines, so will gas. If oil stays flat in the Permian, gas will still grow. If oil grows slowly, gas will grow fast. And if oill declines slowly, gas will still grow moderately. This is a natural effect of the average age of the wells increasing as the basin matures. Gas declines slower than oil.

       In addition, of course, the Permian is an extremely complex geological basin. Huge surface area and depth. And the nature of the resource can differ significantly in different counties and strata. Consider the Alpine High project as well as the Barnett (in the Permian, Dennis!) stratum. Both are much more gas prone and are not economic to drill given very low gas prices in basin (because of egress limits). However exploratory drilling and the like show significant resource potentiall if we ever need more gas from the Permian.

       If your only modeling is based on what has been shown by production (I won’t believe those crazy optimists until they prove it!), you will tend to be biased too conservative. This is especially the case where development is blocked by end price or by egress (i.e. local price) or by regulation (e.g. Alaska).

    9. Anonymous

       11/19/2025

       Mea culpa for duplicative posts. Sometimes one doesn’t show up for a while and I got confused if I had posted it. Edit not showing now either.

    10. DC

        11/19/2025

        Nony,

        Yes Permian has been growing, but soon it is expected to reach a plateau (if oil prices remain where they are +/- $5/b). It is pretty clear that gassy areas of the Permian are not profitable at current prices in the Permian. So far these future gas plays that you speculate on are not being drilled, perhaps because they are not profitable at current prices. Just because a resource exists does not mean it can be extracted profitably. My scenarios try to guess the economically recoverable resources. I assume resources will be plentiful relative to demand so that prices are likely to remain low.

        I am assuming the Permian Basin remains an oil play and the gas produced will be associated gas.

        Well profile at link below. At current oil, NGL and natural gas prices the well reaches economic limits at 165 months with cumulative oil at 429 kb and cumulative natural gas at 1.99 BCF.

        permian 2020 well profile 2511

21. Coffeeguyzz

    11/18/2025

    For years, many of us ‘shale’ boosters have been derided as ‘Cornicopians/Cornies’ for our unabashed appreciation of the dizzyingly rapid onslaught of technological and process improvements that have emerged over the last 15 years.

    Examples …
    No longer does a rig take 60 days to drill a single well in the Bakken, be broken down, loaded on/transported several miles via truck, and repeat the process.
    Pad operations with a walking Super Spec rig will drill 4 wells in under 50 days with way more accurate formation targeting.
    (Not unusual to surpass 10,000 feet per day in the AB.)

    No longer are 1,000/2,000 truck trips Per. Well. needed as piped water (frac and produced), improved sand handling, and operating on existing pads has reduced that to about 300.
    (Didja know that 80% to 99% of Delaware basin frac water is now gotten from recycling? Where are the ‘West Texas is going dry doomsters? Prob hanging out with their Red Queen sisters, lamenting in Captain Queeg-like fashion ” Any day, now, we’re gonna run out. You’ll see”.)

    When 30 stages/well were frac’d – taking 2 weeks with varying results – people thought it was fantastic.
    Today frac’ing a 4 well Marcellus pad with 70 stages each is done in ~30 days total time.
    Using material including micro- proppants, diverters, wet sand, et al, has greatly enhanced production while lowering costs.
    (Exxon just claimed to be using lightweight pet coke with significant improvement in both cost and output.)

    List goes on and on.

    Globally, forward looking leaders are now able to evaluate how much of their in-country, underground hydrocarbon bounty they may wish to recover using many of these pioneering innovations for the benefit of their fellow citizens.

    While the future is unknown, concepts such as remote control, automation, ultra high pressure (20,000 psi) hardware, EOR, ever improving seismic, Artificial Intelligence, etc. all point to the upward vision of a better, greatly enhanced oil/gas ‘world’ than that which exists today.

    Best is yet to come!

    1. Paul Pukite (@whut)

       11/18/2025

       “improving seismic, Artificial Intelligence, etc.”

       1st part reinforces Red Queen — as fast as they can get started, they start to deplete

       2nd part reinforces Jevons Paradox — sure AI may find a few more, but AI feeds on what it finds

    2. Anonymous

       11/19/2025

       Somehow despite all the “flash in the pan” and “drill the best stuff first” that peak oilers like Berman and TOD were pushing c. 2010 (well after shale was “news”), here we are fifteen (15!) years later with record oil and gas production in the USA. And at prices that are sub $50 oil and sub $3 gas (in 2010 dollars). That’s a production explosion. And surviving low prices.

       Oh…and funny how all the peak oilers were such ardent antishale analysts. Instead of keeping open minds and acknowledging uncertainty on a new issue, they downtalked shale like crazy. Of course that makes sense when you realize they were/are politically biased (hate FF for greenie reasons) AND that they allow wishcasting (what they wanted to happen) to influence their predictions (what they expected to happen).

    3. Paul Pukite (@whut)

       11/19/2025

       ” Somehow despite all the “flash in the pan” and “drill the best stuff first” that peak oilers like Berman and TOD were pushing c. 2010 (well after shale was “news”), here we are fifteen (15!) years later with record oil and gas production in the USA.

       Plateau. 15 years passed in a high-tech society requiring convenient energy to sustain the economy, you bet all the subsidies were in place to at least maintain the status quo.

       ” And at prices that are sub $50 oil and sub $3 gas (in 2010 dollars).

       Demand is on a plateau.

       ” That’s a production explosion.

       That’s a lie.

       ” And surviving low prices.

       What does that even mean? Low prices are relative.

       ” Oh…and funny how all the peak oilers were such ardent antishale analysts.

       They were the ones that figured out the Red Queen behavior. An eye-opening tour-de-force analysis that put the rest to shame.

       ” Instead of keeping open minds and acknowledging uncertainty on a new issue, they downtalked shale like crazy.

       Placed a reality check on cornucopian fantasies.

       ” Of course that makes sense when you realize they were/are politically biased (hate FF for greenie reasons) AND that they allow wishcasting (what they wanted to happen) to influence their predictions (what they expected to happen).

       Having nutcases running all the branches of the federal government (executive, both legislative chambers, and judicial) is unfortunate. The predictions were too easy, based on math skills that MAGAts lack.

    4. DC

       11/19/2025

       Nony,

       Yes those peak oilers at the EIA had it all wrong in the AEO 2011. I include the reference case and the high oil price case (which was the highest of all possible scenarios for crude oil in the AEO 2011.)

       aeo 2011

    5. DC

       11/19/2025

       AEO 2011 Oil prices in 2009 $ for reference and high oil price scenarios.

       The AEO 2011 was published April 26, 2011 so mostly had monthly data through Dec 2010 when doing the analysis. Seems they also were not aware how productive tight oil would become.

       Reference case had oil prices at $110/b in 2009 $ in 2025 and the high oil price case had oil prices at about $179/bo in 2009$ in 2025. October 2025 average WTI oil price in 2009$ was $40.16/bo.

       Note that the low oil price case form AEO 2011 had real oil prices at $48/bo in 2009$ in 2025 and US L48 C+C output at 4.79 Mb/d in 2025 for the low oil price scenario. For the most recent 12 months the average monthly WTI price has been about $44.80/b in 2009 $.

       aeo 2011 oil price

    6. Sheng Wu

       11/20/2025

       funny that it is Summers, the lousy left-wing financial guru, who credited most of shale oil and gas as “the single real most important GDP growth in the first decade of 21 century”

22. Mike Shellman

    11/18/2025

    80-99% of produced water volumes from the Delaware Basin are NOT recycled for frac source water. That is an outright lie and a blatant discourtesy to West Texans and New Mexicans embedded in severe drought, worried about the loss of valuable groundwater from 15 years of using fresh, potable groundwater for frac’ing.

    https://www.aogr.com/magazine/frac-facts/permian-embraces-produced-water-recycling

    This above is an article from 2023 when oil prices were in their mid $70’s. The number was 25% then and that was stretched. Now, at <$60 oil, and an effort to reduce costs thru any shortcut possible, that number is down to less than 20%.

    Every stinking HZ tight oil well frac'ed in the Delaware Basin, for oil exports to foreign countries, uses between 600,000 and 700,000 BW, or 27,000,000 gallons. Most of it is within TDS range for livestock and agriculture use. There are 2,600 wells completed in the Delaware at current rig rates every year.

    "Where are the ‘West Texas is going dry doomsters? Prob hanging out with their Red Queen sisters, lamenting in Captain Queeg-like fashion ” Any day, now, we’re gonna run out. You’ll see”.

    I am right here, DH. Trying to get to the truth about my nation’s hydrocarbon future in a big ‘ol pile of liars.

    https://www.oilystuff.com/group/economic-discussions-well-costs-debt-finance/discussion/6977ae42-7ccd-4aee-91c3-2a01be3d260e

    1. Coffeeguyzz

       11/18/2025

       Mr Roughneck,

       From your linked AOGR article …
       “We expect New Mexico producers to satisfy 75% on average of their completions’ water demand with recycled produced water in 2023, while operators on the Texas side achieve 45%”.
       ” … we expect recycled volumes in the Permian Basin to reach 80% of total average Permian Basin demand by the end of this decade …”
       “In New Mexico, Devon Energy has met 86% of its completion water needs with produced water so far in 2023”.

       EOG, Oxy, Chevron, Exxon and others are reporting over 90% frac water is now recycled where the pipes are emplaced. These guys have a huge financial incentive to go this route.

       Thanks for linking the article that buttresses my comments.

       But … but wait!!
       600,000/700,000 barrels of aqua for a single frac!?!?
       Mais non, mez amee!!
       Canna be!!
       You told me on this very site 10 years back that it was physically impossible for EOG to pump 153,000 barrels of water when they frac’d the Riverview 102 32-H!
       You said you ran the numbers through some computer program and called me a bald faced liar for posting EOG’s claim.

       I’m so confused …

    2. DC

       11/19/2025

       Coffeeguyzz,

       There is also the issue of produced water which needs to be either recycled or disposed in shallow salt water disposal (SWD) wells. Produced water is about 13 million barrels per day.

       Note that there is very little demand for produced water, it is a waste product.

       https://www.b3insight.com/water-the-bottleneck-for-american-oil-production/

       Also see

       https://gapp-oil.com.ar/2025/06/01/the-crude-truth-water-management-challenges-threaten-permian-basin-oil-production/

       Water used for fracking in the Delaware Basin can be estimated. We will assume 2600 wells completed per year with 600 kb of water used per well or 2600*600=1.56 billion barrels of water per year. Divide by 365 to get 4.3 million barrels of water per day used for fracking, this is about a third of the produced water volume, so even if 100% of frack water comes from recycled water, there remains an expensive SWD problem of about 9 Mb/d in the Delaware Basin.

    3. Mike Shellman

       11/19/2025

       Your beloved sector of my industry has a long history of making promises it can’t deliver on. Profitability, for instance.

       “We expect,” is different than we DID, consistently. Do some more work, avoid believing in everything you read on the internet, though I understand that is all you have, and try not to cherry pick what you simply want to believe. Above all else don’t be insulting to West Texans, or the entire West for than matter, about water, not from the where ever the hell you are from. San Francisco is it? Water is a serious problem and one not to be flippant about with stupid comments like “West Texas going dry doomers.”

       Below $65 everything changes in the tight oil industry, except short cuts. Recycling produced water is not something that can be audited. Most of what the sector says about that simply makes it appear as thought it is good stewards of water resources. That shit is so nasty out there when it is recycled it can only be recycled once, then it goes back in the ground and causes earthquakes. Google injection of Permian acid gasses, that will keep you busy for a while.

       Show me the link when I said that about EOG; I don’t remember that frac in North Dakota years ago. Back then 1 mile laterals and 200K pound fracs was pretty normal and they did not require a lot of water. Ten years later, in a Basin 1,500 mile away, fracs are much bigger, contain dendritic-like stages whereby the entire job will require 700,000 BW. What exactly is your point?

       Don’t be confused. You know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. You wish to make a point that you know more about shale than anybody and everybody else is wrong except you. You are clever about it…so carry on. I don’t care. Just don’t make shit up. I am fiercely protective of my State’s water woes.

       Have a nice day.

    4. Sheng Wu

       11/19/2025

       Amazing Appalachian has the lowest production water, which really minimize production and environmental cost.

23. Carnot

    11/19/2025

    New post on bottom of the barrel processing at Oilystuff

    https://www.oilystuff.com/group/oil-natural-gas-refining/discussion

    1. Anonymous

       11/19/2025

       Reactions:

       1. Very much appreciated and an overall thank you.

       2. I feel like it is pitched slightly too hard. The upstream and downstream are incredibly ignorant of each other. So a more “for dummies” approach would be better. And I say this as someone with a higher level of knowledge (on downstream) than the average upstream executive, but much less than a real refinery person.

       3. Re 2, in particular, I would show/emphasize/teach more the concept of a distallation curve as a central concept and how it affects the middle parts of the refinery more. Jumping right into the asphaltenes and ignoring the distallation curve seems like going to a nuance before explaining a simpler concept.

       4. I also quite like the Exxon public assays.

       5. I would have picked more stereotypically different crude slates. A light sweet (probably Midland WTI), a medium sour (e.g. Mars) and a heavy sour (e.g. Kern River). As it is, the slates shown are all low sulfur, which is not realistic.

       6. Later in the discussion, there is some stuff about hydrocracking, but it is not well explained. And at the beginning only FCC versus old school (1920s!) thermal cracking are discussed.

       7. Agree with the comments on visbreakers. I worked at a place that had one. Like a poor man’s coker. Lot of them out there.

    2. Sheng Wu

       11/19/2025

       The sulfur content for domestic crude probably is not shale oil, as they are usually below 0.25%.

    3. Mike Shellman

       11/19/2025

       Annoying, the author of this contribution to my blog has a long list of accolade’s in the downstream refinery business. He lives in the UK and has the worse kind of cancer you can ever have, yet he carries on. We are bonded, he and I. He tries to help. He cares.

       I will pass your critique of his writing skills on but I trust his reaction to that would be the same as mine…write your own shit. Be a predator, not a stinking buzzard looking for road kill.

       “The sulfur content for domestic crude probably is not shale oil, as they are usually below 0.25%.”

       I will pass this on to the author as well, though it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. As cooked oil escapes a resource bed looking for sediments to be trapped in, the journey can takes millions of years and the oil altered by water, oxidation, high concentrations of sulfur, mineralization in fault planes, etc. etc. In my career I produced millions of barrels of 0.45% sulfur oil from depths <3,000 feet, that was fingerprinted as having coming from the Eagle Ford kitchen, made 50 million years prior and 6,000 feet deeper.

       Why do internet experts all want to be oil experts? Why do they wish to so often totally embarrass themselves in front of an industry, with real experience, that is 140 years old? Jesus. People laugh at this stuff.

       Is it just about being right, and proving your education? Are you genuinely interested in the long term energy security of your country and conservation, pressure maintenance, increasing RR from 8%, or are you just wanting to prove how smart you are?

       What if you are wrong? Will you apologize to your readers for being wrong?

       Who would say on a public forum to the people of West Texas that are worried about their groundwater resources they are “doomers.”

       You folks have gotten really fucked up.

       Whatever, you have found the right spot. Whatever you do, don't leave. You'd be eaten alive in my world.

    4. Sheng Wu

       11/20/2025

       Mr. Shellman,
       Lots of discoveries are made by outsiders with curiosity or personal grudge.
       I am a laser spectroscopist, built a laser isotope machine and took it to the oil field and was told the isotope itself does not work. Now, I am on a personal grudge to prove them wrong, like to improve RR to real 18% as Continental Sooners claims.

       I found lots of conventional knowledge have been defeated by the last 20 years shale and deep drilling. For example, the Sulfur content, conventional oil generation model claims that type IIs source rock like Eagle Ford should generate S content over 1.5%, but shale drilling in EF proved them wrong — it is actually rare to see S content over 1% in EF. The extra sulfur was picked up after oil left source rock, pickup during migration and alterations by bacteria.

       After the success of EF as the first success of shale oil, the industry gave the model that oil has to high GOR light oil in order to flow, and yet they overlooked the the PVT bubble point pressure is actually dominating, not viscosity.

       the list goes on and somehow they are all somewhat related isotope.

24. Andre The Giant

    11/19/2025

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cythBGQJ4Us

    5 minutes

    4th Shale Revolution

    Exxon Mobile introduces a new proppant to US Shale.

    Could this be why Exxon bought Pioneer?

    1. Anonymous

       11/19/2025

       I’m glad that things are being tried and I agree that innovation continues. But I remain cautious about petcoke. It is higher cost than sand and lower hardness. Also, you can modify the rheology of the fracwater with gums (unslicked water), rather than just looking for lower density proppants. We shale see what we see. But I’m always skeptical of press release science.

       I would also be very wary of “justify the” fallacies that F500 companies can fall into. XOM wants to justify the (a) PXD acquistion and ( b) being integrated. This gives it powerful “incentive to believe” in the petcoke innovation. But, danger, Will Robinson. This is hopium. Better to consider these issues independently and objectively.

       Here is a more cautious article: https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/wall-st-futures-steady-after-extended-losses-on-nvidia-payrolls-caution-4366614

       Note in particular, the very low statistical power of the comparison (only three petcoke wells) along with rest of industry still being skeptical.

    2. DC

       11/19/2025

       Nony,

       Your skepticism of this new technology sounds like the “ardent anti-shale analysts” who were skeptical that tight oil could become a significant factor in World oil production (as it is the US tight oil is now about 11% of World C+C output, so of some significance at the World level). Perhaps this will be more significant than the ardent anti-petcoke folks think.

       I agree with your skeptical take on this video which sounds like hype, but that should give you pause perhaps.

    3. Andre The Giant

       11/19/2025

       I think it is always wise to be skeptical of any claim with regard to new technology.

       However, Exxon is very very credible.

       Their acquisition of Pioneer made no sense based on 80% decline in first 2 years (???) in shale wells.

       But if they knew about this proppant internally?

       This might make it make sense.

       I don’t know. Just posting the video.

    4. Sheng Wu

       11/19/2025

       haha, the youtube title has “Fourth Sale Revolution” by Peter

       One of the bottleneck for Permian or US marine shale oil production right now is the physics of PVT bubble point, that brought in the ever higher decline in oil production, GOR increase and frac-hit etc. This is first promoted really hard by Scott Lapierre, but unfortunately ignored by many other shale experts. This physics bottleneck can not by mitigated by proppant, if the pressure of shale production could not be maintained like conventional oil with water or gas pumping.

       Back to the start of shale revolution, the team started the revolution had 2 papers called “proppant, we still do not need stinky proppant“ where “stinky” was later removed in formal final publication.
       The famous authors include Steinsberg who is recognized as the first to do water fracing in shale, Mayerhoffer and Walker are the promoter for Volume Stimulation in contrast to conventional fracing, and Meehan was then the SPE president. But, the mainstream always overwhelm their title “we still do not need proppant”, and keep going back to more expensive fancy proppant.

       https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shale-revolution-arent-when-you-judge-conventional-wisdom-sheng-wu

       Maybe it turned out the key is just water, a trace of coke as hopium.
       The industry already switched from
       “no stinky proppant” to “Ceramic Proppant+ Gua Gel” to “White Sand by Rail + slick water” to “Local Sand + Slick water” to “local wet sand + water”

    5. svaya

       11/20/2025

       >haha, the youtube title has “Fourth Sale Revolution” by Peter

       The 4th “hard sell” revolution?

25. gerry maddoux

    11/19/2025

    Fracking with Petroleum Coke:

    Whichever side you take, this is creative thinking. The point was made that it’s not as dense as sand and yet more expensive, but if you actually own the refinery that’s putting out millions of tons of this stuff and you don’t own a sandbox, it makes financial sense from that alone.

    On the other hand, it’s hard for me to grasp the physical nature of the coke as a proppant (stoichiometry?) as I had this visual concept in my head that fissures leading to hydrocarbon-bearing pores in the shale matrix eventually became “plugged up” because a) the pressure dropped, but also b) long-chain and complex aromatic compounds got stuck in those tiny crevices.

    I may be wrong but I don’t believe native hydrocarbons are in any way miscible in end-stage carbon particulate matter such as petroleum coke. So the only real function is physical, right? I somehow doubt that. I was immensely impressed by the complex molecular structure of the asphaltene that the gentleman from the UK included in his beautiful report. Now if petroleum coke is holding open a tiny fissure, how is a big boy like that going to squeeze past?

    Fracking sand is really just crystalline silica, and it doesn’t swell. Additionally, it can withstand more exogenous pressure than petroleum coke. Even though the coke is largely inert, there must be something about it that reduces the frictional coefficient in the deep earth, so that those large native hydrocarbons that are usually in low concentration but capable of shutting down the tiny, long corridors to the drill core can keep squeezing past even as the pressure drops. I would imagine that Exxon has experimented with every kind of petroleum coke that their refineries produce–including adding tiny amounts of copper and other minerals that drop the frictional coefficient.

    I’m no chemist or petroleum engineer, just a curious seeker of wisdom, so if anyone out there can shed some light on this I’d be obliged. And if Exxon figured out a way to increase the yield, good on them.

    1. svaya

       11/20/2025

       People forget that when companies need money from investors come up with plausible technical sounding solutions, like AGI, Cold fusion, quantum computing, the ftx crypto exchange or the nanotainer for «quick blood test that will solve any illness»

       Does it scale. If it scaled it would have been a secret and put to use to secretly bury the competition. Occam razor.

26. Iver

    11/20/2025

    DC

    You said I was putting cart before horse and electricity prices may be coming down in my country due to wind power increasing.

    Do you really think you know more than I do what electricity prices have been over the last 20 years?

    What data do you have?

    As for your often repeated quote that Rexas has high amount of wind and has low electricity prices.

    https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TX#tabs-4

    You don’t even know what is happening in your own country.

    Texas is not high in terms of wind and solar. Dirt cheap natural gas is the bulk and backbone of Texas electricity production.

    The cheapest gas almost in the world produces cheap electricity. Nations with high wind and solar include Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production

    All with electricity prices that have tripled and more in the last 15 years. Most of those costs are due to wind and solar requirements

    https://nomadandinlove.com/electricity-in-germany/

    China renewables are only 12% which is very small in terms of costs. Costs to the grid really start to rapidly increase when wind and solar exceeds 30% or so.

    Once the United States gas production starts to fall you will be in the same boat as Europe.

    Thanks for the LNG by the way, much appreciated

    1. DC

       11/20/2025

       Iver,

       I think I said Texas has high wind + solar net generation, in 2024 the annual average was about 30% from wind and solar in terms of electric power output for Texas.

       Prices for fossil fuel are relatively high in Europe which is probably the main reason for high electricity prices for those nations without many energy resources. Also taxes are higher in Europe.

       https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics

    2. Iver

       11/20/2025

       Dennis

       If you can’t be bothered to do proper research on a subject then say nothing. Any one can spout out what little they know.
       A little knowledge always leads to nonsense conclusions.

    3. DC

       11/20/2025

       Iver,

       A single month tells us very little, at least 12 months of data is needed.

       The data for Texas is for the entire year of 2024, look it up at EIA.

       https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&fuel=g084&geo=0000000002&sec=g&freq=A&start=2001&end=2024&ctype=linechart&ltype=pin&rtype=s&pin=&rse=0&maptype=0

       all 2024 electricity generation=566.5 TWh
       all solar generation=45.5 TWh
       all wind generation=124.3 TWh
       all wind+solar=169.8 TWh
       % of total generation from wind and solar=169.8/566.5=29.97%

       Also if we sum the monthly generation for the most recent 12 months (Sept 2024 to August 2025) for TX wind+solar generation and for total generation from all sources we get 583.5 TWh from all sources and 185.5 TWh from wind and solar combined for 31.8% of total TX electric power from wind+solar for the most recent 12 months reported. Just click on the monthly data tab, download the spreadsheet and add it up.

       One of us does a very poor job on their research, check the mirror.

    4. Iver

       11/21/2025

       DC

       Everything I has said still stands.

       Texas electricity by source has gas first, very cheap gas producing very cheap electricity.

       You inflated ego will not allow you to accept that. You reduce every discussion to. You must be seen to be right. Even though it’s obvious you are wrong.

       The link on German electricity prices, they are wrong also I suppose.

       Wiki data all wrong I suppose. You only have to do a little research on electricity production over the years for Germany or the U.K. you would find cheap coal plants shut down due to taxes or shut by legislation. Taxes imposed on bills to finance the grid that wind and solar need.

       China and India burning the most coal in the world producing, according to real data very cheap electricity.

       Are you and Trump related?

    5. DC

       11/21/2025

       Iver,

       Your argument seems to be that high generation from wind and solar cause high electricity prices. In Texas and Iowa in the US the percentage of electricity generation is higher than the US average, but electricity prices in those states are lower than the US average. In much of the US there are low natural gas prices, it is not only in Texas the this is the case. I have not done detailed research on Europe, I will leave others from Europe to comment on your assertions.

       I agree that electricity prices are high in many European nations, it is not clear that a high share of renewable energy is the cause.

       Note that correlation is not the same as causation.

27. Sheng Wu

    11/20/2025

    Continental just bought into Vaca Muerta,
    here is Vista Investor Day PPT, you could see the type curve is quite different from US Permian or marine in general.
    https://vista-energy.cdn.prismic.io/vista-energy/aRRzarpReVYa4YIn_Vista-InvestorDay2025Presentation.pdf

    Lots of the LGBSO are the best crude in the market, with a high premium — low sulfur, high wax and high density and low resin and gel

    1. Coffeeguyzz

       11/20/2025

       Sheng Wu,

       That is an eye opening presentation from Vista on so many levels.
       Of particular note to an operational wonk such as myself is the rapid adoption of the technological/process innovations that I mentioned upthread.
       Sand handling, frac monitoring, remotely operated directional drilling, etc. … these boys are absolutely cutting edge.
       That 300,000+ barrel production at the 12 month mark – for a ~10,000 foot-equivalent lateral – is very impressive.

       As Continental is being run by the highly regarded Doug Lawler – coupled with Harold’s money and private-company independence – it offers up more indication that the Dead Cow’s future looks exceptionally bright.

       From a macro view, this also ties in with my upthread observation that ‘shale’ production may be on the cusp of a globe-wide rollout.
       While the EIA lists about 40 countries with some TRR ‘shale’ hydrocarbon bounty, there are presently ~20 countries that are in some stage of taking the shale plunge (thanks, chatbot).

       Just as worldwide offshore development sprang from the incredible pioneering work from Da Guf, those ferociously tenacious ‘shale’ pioneers from Canada and the US have laid the foundations for many countries to access this localized source of abundant energy.

       Thanks for posting the link.

    2. Mike Shellman

       11/20/2025

       Continental drilled itself out work in the Bakken trying to make a buck as fast as it could. Its boss whined like a little girl, constantly, about OPEC and Venezuela dumping crude oil on the world market below HIS Bakken costs, which were higher than a kite. IMO he is personally more responsible for Venezuelan sanctions than Trump. They still eat housecats in Venezuela and net flamingoes, to eat.

       As to drilling himself, whatshisname, out of business, look at its GOR basin wide. It then bought some of the worse shit imaginable from Pioneer in Pecos County for 3 B. It was in serious, SERIOUS trouble with shareholders over its exaggerated reserves and went private to avoid nuclear disaster. It then bought Wildhorse, lied about that, and dumped it with 2 years. Private or not, its STILL plus $4B in debt. Can we re-audit its PDP reserves that cover that debt? Let Dennis Coyne do it. Don’t use ARP, add what is produced to what its going to produce by new DCR and it is not even close to what it said 10 years ago.

       Lawler rowed the boat for Chesapeake for 6 years and drove it in the dirt. Into bankruptcy in 2020 and Lawler orchestrated a deal whereby CLR walked on over 7 B dollars of debt. That hurt thousands of service suppliers, small people doing work for for CLR that often had to wait 120 days to get paid. For the bankruptcy and the disappearing of 7 B of debt, into thin air, Lawler was awarded several million dollars from CHK in….”bonus.” GTS it. As in google that shit. CHK then ran him off.

       Everybody lies for a reason, often for personal financial gain, sometimes just to prove a point. Its never a good idea to believe everything you read on the internet.

       So, GTS it. Find the truth.

       Shale development in the Nuygen Basin in Argentina is good for Argentina. Don’t let it be a distraction from the mess here in the United States where we are draining ourselves dry, as fast as possible, for oil and LNG exports.

28. Seppo Korpela

    11/20/2025

    https://www.ief.org/_resources/files/news/monthly-oil–gas-review/11-25.pdf

    Oil demand up in September

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Global-Oil-Demand-Surged-in-September.html

29. DC

    11/20/2025

    A new post is up

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-monthy-oil-market-report-november-2025/