The US Shale Oil Miracle Disappears | Zero Hedge

The US Shale Oil Miracle Disappears | Zero Hedge:

At this point, you might be wondering just how the EIA got its estimate so badly wrong. The answer is that the EIA relied on a private firm, one now scraping corporate relations and PR egg off its face:

U.S. officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey Shale oil by 96%

May 20, 2014

Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California's vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national "black gold mine" of petroleum.

Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

The new estimate, expected to be released publicly next month, is a blow to the nation's oil future and to projections that an oil boom would bring as many as 2.8 million new jobs to California and boost tax revenue by $24.6 billion annually.

The 2011 estimate was done by the Virginia engineering firm Intek Inc.

Christopher Dean, senior associate at Intek, said Tuesday that the firm's work "was very broad, giving the federal government its first shot at an estimate of recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale. They got more data over time and refined the estimate."

(Source)

Wait a minute. The 2011 California shale oil estimate that launched a flotilla of excited "shale miracle" headlines, led the EIA to publish an estimate of the Monterey at 13.7 billion recoverable barrels, and helped to form a national narrative around potential US "energy independence" was done by a Virginia engineering firm?

Okay, well who are they exactly?

Looking at their website, clearly put together using cheesy stock photos, early Internet font formats, and touting the fact that they've been a business "since 1998" doesn't quite project the hoped-for aura of gravitas and seasoned competency:

(Source)

Seriously? A clock in an arch? Typing fingers? A woman gesturing in a meeting and a guy on a phone?

I mean, does anyone other than me have a "no lame stock photos" requirement of the businesses they use to generate the data used to justify a major geopolitical energy realignment? It's the closest thing I have to a hard rule.

Okay, just kidding again....sort of.

At any rate, the bottom line here is that the EIA relied on this firm's back-of-the-envelope calculations which turned out to be -- surprise! -- unreliable. And now, Occidental Petroleum is scrambling to get its assets out of the Monterey and deployed somewhere more promising.

The lesson to be learned here is: don't believe every headline you read. Consider the source, and more importantly -- stock photos or not -- always question the data.

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