Arthur E. Berman is a petroleum geologist with 36 years of oil and gas industry experience. He is an expert on U.S. shale plays and is currently consulting for several E&P companies and capital groups in the energy sector. During the past year, he made more than 25 keynote addresses for energy conferences, boards of directors and professional societies. Berman has published more than 100 articles on oil and gas plays and trends. He has been interviewed about oil and gas topics on CBS, CNBC, CNN, CBC, Platt’s Energy Week, BNN, Bloomberg, Platt’s, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. Berman is an associate editor of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, and was a managing editor and frequent contributor to theoildrum.com. He is a Director of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, and has served on the boards of directors of The Houston Geological Society and The Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists. He worked 20 years for Amoco (now BP) and 16 years as consulting geologist. He has an M.S. (Geology) from the Colorado School of Mines and a B.A. (History) from Amherst College.
The rig count matters. Saying that it doesn’t is like a realtor saying that location doesn’t matter. Rigs Don’t Produce Oil The holiest mystery of…
The break-even price for Permian basin tight oil plays is about $61 per barrel (Table 1). That puts Permian plays among the lowest cost significant…
U.S. crude oil production fell 150,000 barrels per day in May and the global over-supply of liquids was 680,000 barrels per day. The EIA Short-Term…
Enthusiasts believe that shale gas is simultaneously cheap, abundant and profitable thus defying all rules of business and economics. That is magical thinking. The recently…
Data suggests that oil producers need prices in the $70-80 range to survive. That is unlikely in the next year or so. Without more timely…
The horizontal U.S. land rig count fell by 6 rigs to 318 and the total land rig count fell by 3 rigs to 388. Tight…
Image from dfer.org Gasoline demand is a red herring. A red herring is something that takes attention away from a more important subject. Gasoline…
The horizontal U.S. land rig count fell 8 to 324 and the total land rig count fell 10 to 391. Tight oil lost 4 rigs--3…
The U.S. horizontal land rig count for the week ending April 22 fell 3 to 332 and the total land rig count fell 8 to…
The production freeze meeting in Doha was a no-brainer but it ended mindlessly with no action taken. OPEC plus Russia and Mexico met yesterday to…
This week's rig count was mostly about adjusting some big accounting errors from last week! The total U.S. land rig count fell by 5 to…
Oil prices have increased 60 percent since late January. Is this an oil-price recovery? Two previous price rallies ended badly because they had little basis…
The U.S. horizontal land rig count fell by 5 to 341 and the total land rig count fell by 6 to 414. The trend for…
Natural gas prices should double over the next year. Over-supply plus a warm 2015-2016 winter have resulted in low gas prices. That is about to…
Horizontal rigs fell by 13 to 346 and total land rigs fell 12 to 420. (Click to enlarge) Tight oil rigs fell by 10.…
The U.S. horizontal land rig count fell 6 to 369 and the total land rig count fell 4 to 446. Tight oil rigs dropped 3.…
The oil-price rally that began in mid-February will almost certainly collapse. It is similar to the false March-June 2015 rally. In both cases, prices increased…
Total U.S. land rig count fell 13 to 450 rigs and horizontal land rig count fell 14 to 375 rigs. Tight oil plays lost 10…
Oil prices should fall, possibly hard, in coming weeks. That is because fundamentals do not support the present price. Prices should fall to around $30…
The total land rig count dropped 10 to 463 and the horizontal rig count fell 8 to 389 rigs. Tight oil plays lost 8 rigs:…