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> There are over 1 million active oil-and-gas wells across 33 states This is insane. One well per 300 inhabitants of the USA. How is that even economically via
by jiofih 7y ago
> There are over 1 million active oil-and-gas wells across 33 states
This is insane. One well per 300 inhabitants of the USA. How is that even economically viable?
- adammunich 7y agoSpoiler, it's not. Gas companies have been bleeding money.
- throwaway100773 7y agoI’m guessing here, but I think the number seems high because shale wells have short lifespans. The declines are much higher than conventional wells, and so there are a great many of them to maintain production as the wells decline. There are large a number of DUCs, or drilled but uncompleted wells. They maintain these so that when one well runs dry, another can be brought online to maintain production targets. Also it’s more economic to drill as many wells as you can as quickly as possible even if it exceeds targets because there are economies of scale when it comes to moving and leasing rigs that drill the wells.
- alach11 7y agoThe vast majority of wells are old vertical wells, not shale wells. For example, in the Permian basin there are around 18,000 horizontal shale wells but over 300,000 vertical conventional wells.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoDoes that hold for the Bakken in ND also? See [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a-mysterious-patch-of-light-shows-up-in-the-north-dakota-dark https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a...
- alach11 7y agoGreat question. For the Williston Basin, the numbers are 31,905 horizontals vs. 28,330 verticals. It definitely speaks to the difference in when these basins were developed.
- dylan604 7y agoHave you ever looked at Google maps/Earth of Texas? Zoom out to a couple thousand feet, and look at all of the little white dots across the surface. Each one of those little dots is a fracking well. Seeing it from this view is quite shocking. Look at how close houses/schools/etc are next to these well sites.
- Nicholas_C 7y agoHere’s an example of some I found the other day. Each one of those white dots is a well pad where they cleared the land for a drilling rig to work. If you look closely you can see surface pumps on many of them. Some have storage tanks as well. This entire region (the Permian Basin) is pockmarked like this. (31.6643861, -103.0348924) Dropped pin Near Winkler County, TX https://goo.gl/maps/J2zi8VwD2QjKUpbk8 https://goo.gl/maps/J2zi8VwD2QjKUpbk8
- hylaride 7y agoWhoa. I zoomed out, then double whoa.
- OrgNet 7y agoholy shit, this is not even the worst spot... this one appears to be more dense: https://goo.gl/maps/9YZrP4of97tDgQmH6 https://goo.gl/maps/9YZrP4of97tDgQmH6 .... I think I found out where they dump all those waste products: https://goo.gl/maps/ZkfDDKM26gfmtQTL6 https://goo.gl/maps/ZkfDDKM26gfmtQTL6
- jmkb 7y agoNo way anyone in West Texas would bother driving all the way to Sabine... see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22149320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22149320
- Boondox543 7y agoMore likely here... https://www.google.com/maps/place/Midland+County,+TX/@32.2885061,-94.7806829,17z/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x86f9613991a5d10f:0x260ae188f0f0a6ab?hl=en-US https://www.google.com/maps/place/Midland+County,+TX/@32.288...
- hanniabu 7y ago> How is that even economically viable? You bribe politicians into removing regulations to lower the costs
- carapace 7y ago> How is that even economically viable? Are you kidding? It's like drilling up geysers of money. The ten most profitable companies in the world are nine oil companies and Apple. Count the cars and trucks and planes and generators and leaf-blowers and chainsaws and every piece of plastic ever and thousands of chemical byproducts... oil is everywhere.
- jiofih 7y agoI was thinking of the overhead of equipment, personnel and so on. Saudi Arabia produces as much oil with 100x less wells. All I can imagine is that US oil is massively subsidized, to the point of market forces or efficiency not mattering at all.
- carapace 7y agoAh, yeah, I don't know, I'm not that knowledgeable about it. Maybe Texas is less efficient than the Saudis, maybe the tech is older or something, but they're not losing money on those fields. Oil is black gold. FWIW, oil is massively subsidized: war isn't cheap, eh?