Michael Giberson
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a story on shale gas production critic Art Berman:
Arthur Berman runs a one-man energy consulting firm out of his home near Houston, producing research that says forecasts for natural gas production in the U.S. are flawed. He’s won the industry’s attention and its anger.
Since last month, Chesapeake Energy and Devon Energy, two of the five largest gas producers in the U.S., attacked Berman’s claims. Berman, 59, had his monthly column pulled from the November issue of World Oil after gas companies complained, prompting him to quit the trade journal.
Berman, an oil geologist who worked two decades for Amoco, says company production projections for shale gas in the U.S. are at least double what drill results justify. At issue is the rate of production decline in shale wells, where water, sand and other materials are injected to fracture rock and make gas flow.
“I think that the wells decline at a much higher rate than the operators think they do,” Berman said in an interview in Houston. “They’re being overly optimistic.”
More on the dispute at the linked article.
[HT to NewsWatch: Energy]