{"id":46908,"date":"2019-06-25T11:01:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T16:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46908"},"modified":"2019-06-25T11:01:30","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T16:01:30","slug":"shale-pioneer-fracking-is-an-unmitigated-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46908","title":{"rendered":"Shale Pioneer: Fracking Is An \u201cUnmitigated Disaster\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/Shale-Pioneer-Fracking-is-an-Unmitigated-Disaster.html\">Shale Pioneer: Fracking Is An \u201cUnmitigated Disaster\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d32r1sh890xpii.cloudfront.net\/article\/718x300\/cdd2a1ce2d805d40458a13086053100e.jpg\" alt=\"Pioneer drilling rig\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fracking has been an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d for shale companies themselves, according to a prominent former shale executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe shale gas revolution has frankly been an unmitigated disaster for any buy-and-hold investor in the shale gas industry with very few limited exceptions,\u201d Steve Schlotterbeck, former chief executive of EQT, a shale gas giant,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2019\/06\/23\/former-shale-gas-ceo-says-shale-revolution-has-been-disaster-drillers-investors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>&nbsp;at a petrochemicals conference in Pittsburgh. \u201cIn fact, I&#8217;m not aware of another case of a disruptive technological change that has done so much harm to the industry that created the change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He did not pull any punches. \u201cWhile hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits have accrued to hundreds of millions of people, the amount of shareholder value destruction registers in the hundreds of billions of dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cThe industry is self-destructive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The message is not a new one. The shale industry has been burning through capital for years, posting mountains of red ink. One estimate from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/a-leader-of-americas-fracking-boom-has-second-thoughts-11561388670\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Wall Street Journal<\/a>&nbsp;found that over the past decade, the top 40 independent U.S. shale companies burned through $200 billion more than they earned. A 2017&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">estimate<\/a>&nbsp;from the WSJ found $280 billion in negative cash flow between 2010 and 2017. It\u2019s incredible when you think about it \u2013 despite the record levels of oil and gas production, the industry is in the hole by roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/A-Gusher-Of-Red-Ink-For-US-Shale.html\">red ink<\/a>&nbsp;has continued right up to the present, and the most&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/Can-Shale-Survive-Low-Oil-Prices.html\">recent downturn<\/a>&nbsp;in oil prices could lead to more losses in the second quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, questionable economics is not exactly breaking news when it comes to shale. But the fact that a prominent former shale executive \u2013 who presided over one of the largest shale gas companies in the country \u2013 called out the industry face-to-face, raised some eyebrows, to say the least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shale Pioneer: Fracking Is An \u201cUnmitigated Disaster\u201d Fracking has been an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d for shale companies themselves, according to a prominent former shale executive. \u201cThe shale gas revolution has frankly been an unmitigated disaster for any buy-and-hold investor in the shale gas industry with very few limited exceptions,\u201d Steve Schlotterbeck, former chief executive of EQT, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6010,26151,26152,827],"class_list":["post-46908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-nick-cunningham","tag-shale-fracking","tag-shale-oil-gas","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46909,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46908\/revisions\/46909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}