US Now Produces More Oil and Gas Than Russia and Saudi Arabia

"Claudia Assis writes that the US will end 2013 as the world's largest producer of petroleum and natural gas, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia with the Energy Information Administration estimating that combined US petroleum and gas production this year will hit 50 quadrillion British thermal units, or 25 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, outproducing Russia by 5 quadrillion Btu. Most of the new oil was coming from the western states. Oil production in Texas has more than doubled since 2010. In North Dakota, it has tripled, and Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah have also shown steep rises in oil production over the same three years, according to EIA data. Tapping shale rock for oil and gas has fueled the US boom, while Russia has struggled to keep up its output. 'This is a remarkable turn of events,' says Adam Sieminski, head of the US Energy Information Administration. 'This is a new era of thinking about market conditions, and opportunities created by these conditions, that you wouldn't in a million years have dreamed about.' But even optimists in the US concede that the shale boom's longevity could hinge on commodity prices, government regulations and public support, the last of which could be problematic. A poll last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that opposition to increased use of fracking rose to 49% from 38% in the previous six months. 'It is not a supply question anymore,' says Ken Hersh. 'It is about demand and the cost of production. Those are the two drivers."'"

 

Seems I am always playing Devils advocate in these type of threads. You have to consider this and similar stories in proper context.
The reason that production is on rise is not the discovery of vast new fields of untapped oil and gas. It is on the rise due to the fact that production has been in severe decline the world over for the last few decades, thus driving up the prices to record and previously unimaginable levels.
It is these record prices that have provided the incentive to utilize methods of extraction that were heretofore not economically feasible. We have known of hydraulic frackturing for years, we have known that the Bakken, the Eagleford, the Haynesville Shales all contained vast amounts of oil and gas embedded in the very tight formations. But the cost to extract that resource prohibited it.

The quote in the above post is quite telling "But even optimists in the US concede that the shale boom's longevity could hinge on commodity prices, government regulations and public support, the last of which could be problematic."
That is the key, how long will this new boon last? And with increased production you invariably get increased consumption. These type of stories only fuel the thought that "Why do I need to conserve, we have plenty of oil". I hope that our policy makers and public sentiment won't be distracted from the urgent need to develop more efficient ways to use and conserve energy. We have a temporary reprieve, but I expect the same old American greed and sentiment to prevail, use all you want and don't worry about tomorrow.

This boon in production is from enhanced recovery of known and existing fields. It is not from the discovery of unknown new fields. In other words we have found a more efficient way to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

 

That' exactly the thing to watch. These fracked wells deplete very fast. It isn't like putting a straw into a lake and sucking until it is dry. The oil in these very tight formations doesn't free flow. That is why the severe fracking is needed to break open the formation and cause channels to allow the oil to flow into the main wellbore to be extracted to surface. So you are only sucking up what is around the straw. When you can't suck anymore you have to move the straw to a new area, drill another well. So the production rate in these fields depends on constant drilling of new wells to maintain.
I was drilling in the Vicksburg sands gas field of South Texas several years ago. The wells, on a restricted choke, would only produce for about two years. We were constantly drilling new wells to try to maintain the production rate of the field. In 2008 Nat gas was in oversupply mode and the price fell through the floor. We couldn't continue to operate the 5 rigs that we had in the field and dropped down to only one. The production rate of the field dropped along with the rig count. After a couple of years the supply naturally tightened and the price went back up and then we could afford to put out more rigs. It's a never ending cycle.
These fracked wells are the same, the production rate falls off quickly and to keep up the level of production more wells have to be constantly added. But as supply goes up, rices come down, and the only reason these wells are economically viable at this time is due to the high prices. So the article states a very important point, the longevity of this increase in production depends on several factors, one of the most important being market conditions.
All peak oil models have a plateau period. They don't reach the peak and immediately free fall off the other side. These plateaus have peaks and valleys as the unreachable or previously economically unfeasible deposits begin to be exploited.
That is why I cringe when I see reports like this because it is very misleading. I have had many people say "yeah that peak oil thing was a bust". Umm, no actually this recent uptick in production precisely follows peak oil models. It reminds me of the people in 1971 who were laughing at Hubbert, that crazy old geologist who predicted US production would start to decline in the early 70's. They said, ha! We are producing more oil today than ever!. By the end of 1972 US production had begun a decline, a steady decline that has lasted for over 40 years until this recent uptick.

 

There is more than just production to consider when matching US vs the rest of the world. In the gas fields, the measure is Estimated Ultimate Production (EUR - usually stated in billions of cubic feet. I imagine the oil fields are stated in barrels, Minuteman will tell us that if it is relevant --) Those relatively small and shallow gas sands near Vicksburg are easy recovery wells, and keeping the gas flowing requires punching more holes simply due to the size of the individual pockets of gas. The same is said for oil sands if the oil is easy flowing (tar sands do not flow in real time, it's a case of geologic time for that tar.) I don't know how much fracking is needed for sand formations, but in the rock like the Marcellus and Haynesville, no frack means production decline is measured in days. With fracking, we don't yet know how the decline curves will work, but initial indications are that any given well will produce economically for several years

Up here, the wells have EUR of 10 or 12 bln cu ft with unchoked flows in excess of 10 mln per day with a single frack (and ignores re-fracking as a way to stimulate more recovery.) A quick run at the math says one of those at 10 will run for over 3 years if left running wild and way longer considering normal declines. Figure 6 wells per square mile (a good number in the Marcellus, by the way) and natural gas is seen to be a really good long term fuel. BUT that does NOT say it will last forever, it will run out in these formations sometime down the road. Nat gas is a superior fuel that will lend itself readily to bridge over the gap created by more and more stringent rules for burning coal, oil, wood and the like until nuclear re-awakens, as it must.

Currently, there is a bit of oversupply of nat gas. Each gasco has it's own way of figuring out what the minimum price of gas has to be to support exploration for more fields, and to support keeping a well in production. At this time, there's money to be made at a nominal $4 per 1000 cubic feet, and the companies in this area are producing all the gas they can get to market. To an extent, the high cost producers, or those with shaky financing are falling by the wayside, and the low cost guys are buying up leases from the high guys; the market is shaking out in favor of the low guys, as it should. (In '07 and '08, gas was at around $10 per 1000, and exploration and development of the shale plays was going wild; some of the operations jumped in with little preparation or ability to hang on when the price dropped.) It is also worth the mention that pipelines are a restriction in the short haul, too. Gas users, especially petrochem and power plants can't get feed stock as readily as desired. For examples, look to the power plants that are getting regulated too tightly to continue operations on coal, and are too far (in pipeline access terms) to convert fuel as they might otherwise do just to keep electrons flowing.

So. Peak Oil (and Peak Gas) is real. What remains to know, and we don't, is when that point arrives. It's worth noting that not all the petro deposits have been found, and as price to produce increases, there will be an effort to find more to push Peak times further into the future. For examples, there are two prospective shales in this neck of the woods that have had very little development because they will be higher cost to produce than the Marcellus. (Utica and Trenton Black River. The Utica underlies the Marcellus and some of it can be reached from existing Marcellus well pads. Dunno about the TBR.)

As Minuteman said a couple posts above, we, as a society cannot continue profligate use of dinosaur leftovers. The ability to do so is finite, even if we don't know exactly how finite. We cannot sit back and fail to look for and develop alternatives. All these "new" sources and recovery techniques do is to buy us time.