PCI Monterey Shale report at Smart Planet
December 4, 2013
Post Carbon Fellow David Hughes report Drilling California on the Monterey Shale was reviewed by Chris Nelder at Smart Planet.
From the article:
The bottom line from Hughes’ analysis is stark. Where the USC study estimated that 4,112 wells could produce between .42 and 3.3 million barrels per day from the Monterey region by 2030, Hughes estimates that it would actually take somewhere between 49,119 and 232,562 wells to reach this capacity, depending on the production decline curve used in the estimate. To put this in perspective, current California production from roughly 50,000 wells is just over 0.5 million barrels per day.
Considering that the EIA/INTEK report estimated the total number of potential well locations in the Monterey at 28,032, it’s highly unlikely that the USC production target could be achieved even under the best circumstances. As Hughes flatly states, “the oil production estimates in the USC study lack credibility.”