Bloomberg recently wrote that most U.S. tight oil wells now decline 90% the first 36 months of production life.

Above is the most recent production profile I can produce for wells drilled in 2022 that are 3 years old in the Permian HZ tight oil play. They, in fact, declined 89.6% in three years. These are all wells, both sub-basins, all benches drilled in 2022. This is a Novi chart, by the way, created using realized production data from the Texas Railroad Commission.

Please note that ensuing years, 2023, 2024 and those wells drilled to July 2025 on an oil rate in BOPD vs. time are less productive than 2022 wells so it is likely that, at least in the Permian, wells now decline more than 90% the first 36 months of production life.

I think you need to seriously let that sink in a minute. Imagine investing $10MM, risking…

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Here is a Novi chart for all HZ tight oil wells drilled in the Permian Basin from 2016 to July 2025. These well profiles (by year) are normalized for lateral lengths. At month 24 for 2023 wells the c

There is a giant reason to always portray well economics in a non-GAPP, 'everything-is-good-and-getting-better' manner in the tight oil biz. I don't need to go into that; it's just the way it is.

I happen to believe three quarters of well economic projections are made by people on the internet that don't know any better, never wrote a check for LOE's or an AFE, in their lives; the other quarter is by people who know better and are intentionally trying to mislead folks. Some folks don't even care about well economics...ALL technically recoverable resources will ultimately come out of the ground. Period.

Breakeven, for instance, is something I never heard of in my half century of drilling wells until the shale thing came along. Who cares about breaking even? I want to know what the full cycle, all-in net back price of oil is at a certain NYMEX price, after…

Here is a Novi chart for all HZ tight oil wells drilled in the Permian Basin from 2016 to July 2025. These well profiles (by year) are normalized for lateral lengths. At month 24 for 2023 wells the cumprod. is 218K BO. 2024 and 2025 wells are on a definite path for lower cumprod. than 2023 wells.

These reported barrels of oil are gross to the 100%. The working interest, the people that have to pay the bills only receive, on average 77.5% of this gross production. So, for 2023 a typical Permian Basin operator drilling HZ wells has netted only 169,000 BO in 2 years.

Between the two sub-basins in the Permian I am pretty much 100% certain that a typical 19,500 ft. TMD HZ well is going to cost $10 MM, at least, in today's environment, and that does not include land costs that a lot of companies…

The barrage of utter BS coming from the "C suites" of oil and gas companies during the current downturn in prices had me thinking... Why do they do this? Why do they spew this garbage to any and every market news outlet they can? I think I have the answer. Stay with me for a bit.

In 2005, "Thank You for Smoking" was released on the big screen. It was/is a satirical comedy about a Lobbyist/PR Man/Chief Spokesman for "Big Tobacco" named Nick Nalyor. It aslo briefly loops in similar advocated for the gun and alcohol industry, All three together jokingly refer to themselves as the MOD (merchants of death) Squad. It's a pretty good movie if you've got a few hours to kill.

Nick is smooth, I mean real smooth. The kind of guy that could steal your wife away from you at your wedding and make you fee…