Photographs of Drilling Activity Across the Marcellus Shale
January 3, 2012Crucial Community Water Tests Now Taking Place
January 3, 2012Arthur Berman first calculated the decline rates in 2009 – once public, the companies could not lie to their stockholders – they sort of tried to hide it on page 10, but… we noticed!
Chesapeake spring 2010 stockholders report – see page 10 (below) for gas well decline rate. Production goes up by drilling more and more wells.
Decline rate is 70% the first year and the 30% of the balance the second year – so the decline rate is 85% in two years and unproductive in a year or so more – as much of the Barnett shale is after producing for less than 5 years and gas wells are being plugged in PA after about five years.
The darker color line in the graph below is the production curve of an individual gas well – the production drops to 15% of the initial production within two years. The rising lighter colored curve is total production of all Chesapeake’s gas wells – this rising production curve happens by drilling more and more wells because the wells decline so fast. SEE enlargable image on page 10 of the full report – link below.
