David Hughes—PCI Fellow, earth scientist, and author of the new report, Shale Reality Check 2021: Drilling Into the U.S. Government’s Optimistic Forecasts for Shale Gas & Tight Oil Production Through 2050—along with his new Shale report, were discussed in a recent article from DeSmog.

From the article:

Hughes carefully peered through the EIA’s forecasts, basin by basin, comparing the agency’s assumptions against the real-world drilling data that showed faltering productivity and fast declines from many shale wells. And he concluded that the EIA’s long-term oil and gas outlook suffers from an optimism bias so extreme that it borders on fibbing.

Hughes is skeptical, to put it mildly. He points to data showing that Bakken oil and gas is concentrated in a few highly productive regions, where underground shale layers trap an abundance of hydrocarbons. Drillers have steadily migrated to these “sweet spots,” and drilling outside the core has come to a virtual standstill.