Geological note

 

Pennsylvania shales had a previously productive life about 20 million years ago, oozing oil into porous limestone, some of which was faulted and upthrown during The Ice Age and it leaked surface shows in Titusville, which became the great-great grandsire of U.S. oil exploration. Note that drilling a shale and fracturing it with a 4000 ft lateral to produce gas is constrained by geology. The total organic content (TOC), tens of millions of years of maturation into gas, and sufficient thickness for a mile or two matters. There's a grain structure in shale that determines which way you drill. I've estimated that the Marcellus Shale is 40% depleted, which contradicts money men and geologists working in the shale space. I wish them good fortune as long as it lasts. Below are two Range Resources maps, showing where the thick mature "core" plays are — a liquids bonanza with too much ethane in a region around Pittsburgh, and a dry gas land rush north of Scranton, with plenty of 1000 ft offsets on the leased acreage to leisurely produce more gas unless the balance sheet sputters with stagflation, higher junk bond rates, labor shortage, completion delays, or water use limitation.

 

Same thing in North Dakota, a thick rich core, 70% drilled to death.

 

Oh, boy, the Fox radio personality and former soccer player Brian Kilmeade suggested that we could help the oil and gas industry deliver exports to Europe, like we helped the pharmaceutical industry roll out billions of MRNA shots for every man, woman and child on earth, triple shots for obedient U.S. chumps until today. A fourth shot was approved for people over 50. CDC didn't consult their panel of experts, took Pfizer's word for it, and said they weren't sure how well a second booster would work.

 

Throwing money at a fat pharma ecosystem to make medicines is relatively frictionless compared to an order compelling oil and gas producers to drill more and ship more LNG. The only way to obtain more natural gas for liquefaction and export in a matter of months is to steal it from U.S. consumers. It takes years to build or expand LNG terminals, so we should recruit the Canadians to help. We export gas to Canada, and they're mad about cancellation of Keystone XL. If diplomacy fails we could order Shell and Exxon to tear up contracts on Defense Production Act force majeure to ship LNG from Australasia, but China, Japan, and Korea will scream bloody murder. I don't know how to fix that, except to maybe offer our allies U.S. crude in compensation for LNG snatched from the Pacific Rim. We could sacrifice some oil imports and divert them to Japan and Korea, dispatch guided missile cruisers and attack subs to escort LNG shipping past China, who we don't need to compensate. China gets Russian LNG at a discount.

 

Why can't U.S. natural gas producers just step up their game, drill more, double our domestic supplies in fairly short order? Four hurdles. No manpower, few rigs, backlogged completion contractors, and phony reserves. We could get a little more gas overnight by ordering BHP to open the chokes in Haynesville, if the pipes are big enough to transport more. But forget about doubling U.S. gas production. It would be like ordering farmers to plant and harvest twice as much wheat, or GM to make twice as many vehicles, snapping their corporate fingers to equip more suppliers and factories, train inexperienced people, and build EVs without chips. We could invade Taiwan to loot their semiconductors, I suppose.

 

See what I mean? You can't order agriculture or industrial manufacturing to suddenly do more. Natural gas doesn't fly out of the ground because you want it to. Drilling and fracking a new gas well entails a lot of resources in short supply — steerable bits, coiled tube, fresh water, proppant goo, and contaminated  water disposal. Production requires gathering equipment and connection to an interstate pipeline. The Eagle Ford dry gas leg in South Texas could ramp up pretty quickly if you throw money at it, but I doubt that there are enough skilled people to hurry up more drilling. I have an index of companies active in the Eagle Ford shale. There are five dozen pipeline operators, contractors, and lease operators, including a joint venture with China's flagship CNOOC funding Chesapeake's wet gas development. Cheniere could use more engineering and cryogenic construction crews in Corpus Christie to boost LNG shipping.

Forget about recruiting people off the street. Geology and petroleum engineering are lifelong careers, and toolpushers do not want amateur help. Drivers need a clean CDL, have to pass drug tests, work long hours, drive on rural blacktop and gravel, and back up long tank trailers right on the money every time. There is a national shortage of qualified drivers, pipefitters, welders, and experienced rig hands — not the sort of work that snowflakes or pajama boys could do. Oil Patch community colleges try to enroll young strong men who have families to support, teach them high paying blue collar trades. Gas drillers work 24/7 until a mile long vertical bore and a 4000 ft horizontal lateral are completed safely, including high pressure cement, hydraulic fracture, water disposal, control cap and choke, connected to the field infrastructure. It's dangerous work in a loud, rough, technically exacting, tiring industry. Workers have been killed or seriously injured, despite mandatory Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) training, pro safety equipment, and daily HSE inspection. Go ahead, order everybody to work harder and faster.

 

>>> NEWS FLASH <<<  Holy hell, pardon my language, I just figured out how to rescue Europe. It will require international force majeure at bayonet point and a dozen C-5 missions. Seize Anadarko's shale rigs and drilling crews in Denver, the Conoco rigs and roughnecks from Unita and Piceance basins, and Santos in Queensland, all the coiled tube that Baker Hughes has in inventory, a shitload of Halliburton mud, cement, proppant, a crack wireline crew, downhole tools, mud loggers, and the Schlumberger StacFrac team. Fly everything and everyone to Poland. Frack the Gdansk Depression and Danish-Polish Marginal Trough, targeting the organic-rich Silurian section. Put Exxon in charge. If Poland doesn't like it, declare NATO emergency martial law enforced by the 82nd Airborne and a squad of bilingual diplomats to compensate and relocate civilians who are in the way. Recruit Shell and Total to hire drivers, move water, drill disposal wells, do gas gathering, and push rig supplies around.

 

Presto! — energy independence for Western Europe in 15 months with 15 rigs and a big Schlumberger completion team, European supermajors dividing logistics, and Exxon in command. Only one caveat. Don't let ENI or Repsol offer to help. Suggest they explore Somalia.

 

                     

 

UPDATE 4/15, income tax day and Good Friday, over 380 million people under some form of lockdown in China, millions starving in Shanghai. An interruption of American free enterprise to liberate Western Europe, amply compensated and reimbursed for expenses, isn't much to ask. We should invite spouses and families to visit Poland, first class accommodation, unless the rig hands and engineers would rather party with Polish ladies — which reminds me of what Englishmen said about our 8th Air Force during World War II. Yanks were "over here, over paid, and over sexed!" Jimmy Stewart was a B-17 pilot, flew 20 missions, his plane shot up twice, rose to become wing commander and decorated general officer, saw it as a duty that he couldn't shirk. We have to free Europe from Putin. No one else can do it, except "oil field trash" who know how to sweat blood and frack. Lord help the pretty young babes of Poland in charge of food, drink, and housekeeping. Essential to press gang the Aussies drilling for Santos. They'll drink you under the table and have your back in a bar fight with shavetail Airborne MPs. Probably need a passel of tort settlement lawyers, sooner or later.

 

Concurrent with a gush of natural gas production to declare independence from Russia, we should train locals to learn the trade, take over field development. Exxon can arrange for rig rentals and toolpushers as needed. Poland will inherit a hugely profitable industry, selling gas to Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and domestic consumers. They can pay Uncle Sam a royalty for production on the 45 wells we drilled at lightning speed to deduct $300 billion a year from Putin's war machine.

 

4/26 — Wait a minute, hold everything. The DNC cloak and dagger subcommittee known as Joe Biden shipped heavy weapons to Ukraine and announced the war aim of defeating Russia.

 

Don't send anyone to Poland or try to save Europe. Pushing Putin into a corner gives him no exit ramp. Wall Street is cracking under the pressure. Leave Anadarko in Colorado, Conoco in Utah, and Santos in Queensland, where they'll have greater likelihood of survival as far as possible from the wasteland of a nuclear exchange.

 

Good time to review foreign policy strategy.

https://vimeo.com/299712339  The Executive Power