This is a guest post by Jean Laherrère The problem of forecasting future Bakken production is that estimating reserves of shale oil is harder than for conventional oil and is very unreliable because many confuse reserves and resources, and shale oil reserves depend more from economy than from technology. Many estimate the amount of hydrocarbons generated by the source-rock and believe that a significant percentage could be recovered: the study of the main Petroleum Systems in the world estimate than only about 1% will recovered in conventional fields, no more could be expected in unconventional fields. US Shale gas production started in 1821 in Fredonia for lighting when whale oil price was about 2000 $2014/b, but was replaced by conventional oil in 1859 because a largely lower price. How to estimate future production? Drilling activity is a good way to model production with a shift. In my MIT Paris paper […]