In a talk titled “Shale Boom or Shale Bubble?” at the Broomfield Community Center last Thursday, Deborah Rogers directly challenged the myth of a decades long economic boom from fracking. Rogers is a financial consultant and the founder of the Energy Policy Forum, an organization that studies the policy and financial issues surrounding shale gas and renewable energy.

The talk, sponsored by Our Broomfield and Earthworks, was attended by a full house of about 100 people. Rogers stated that the fracking “boom” has been bolstered by Wall Street money, which began investing heavily in oil and gas shale following the collapse of mortgage-backed securities in 2008. She said Wall Street is playing the same game with shale as with the housing market – manipulating the ratings agencies to boost the commodity. Once a shale field is “proven,” Wall Street sells it at 5 to 10 times the original price. These “proven” fields are initially tapped in their “sweet spot”, and the first wells produce at high capacity that is assumed to permeate the entire field.  The problem is that marginal areas further afield may produce at only 30% capacity of the initial wells. This problem is compounded by declines in production of 30-50% each year for gas shale, and even greater declines for oil shale. Rogers said the Niobrara fields, which underlie most of eastern Colorado, decline by 65% the first year. Wells in the Bakkan field, which span much of western North Dakota, are completely spent after 6 years.

In order the give the illusion of a boom, the oil and gas industry must constant grow production to give the illusion of increasing capacity. In spite of this, Rogers predicts that oil and gas production from fracking will peak around 2017 and the major ‘plays’ will decline to ‘stripper well’ status by 2024.

Please contact the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) commissioners to let them know that their constituents want to see air pollution curbed around oil and gas drilling. The more people they hear from the better, so if you have any friends interested in getting involved, please send forward this onto them.

The person you’ll be contacting is Michael Silverstein who is the Administrator and Technical Secretary. His number is 303-692-3478. We are asking folks to let the commissioners know that they support strong regulations to curb air pollution from oil and gas drilling and to mention 1 or 2 of the following points :

• Nine Colorado counties now exceed EPA limits for ozone pollution.
• Oil and gas operations are the leading source of VOCs in the state, the chemicals that form ground-level ozone.
• The Governor has called for “zero tolerance” on methane emissions that cause climate change and we support that effort.
• This AQCC rulemaking is a huge opportunity to improve our public health by curbing these VOC and methane emissions from oil and gas and we want to see a strong rule.

Thanks!

Robert R. Winkler, CDRP

International Institute of Risk Management

Washington University

Concerned Citizen of Colorado