I hereby declare today, April 18th, National Stripper Well Day. If there isn't already a National Stripper Well Day, there should be; in any case I need a reason to drink cold beer tonight and this is all I can come up with.
Every analyst and so called oil "expert" in America with a computer and a connection to Alexa has shale oil on the brain these days. From break-even's to pounds of sand per perforated foot, that's all anybody wants to write about, or take photos of. Forgotten completely are the thousands of little folks in America, entire families like mine, still out here grinding away in our country's depleted oil and natural gas fields, still employing tens of thousands of hard working men and women and still contributing over 750,000 BOPD to our nations hydrocarbon needs.
Stripper well operators don't need Wall Street, don't need to exaggerate EUR's; hell, most of us don't even know what EBITDA stands for. Our wells are either profitable, or they're not. What the check book says is the real deal and there is no use lying about it. The shale oil industry whines about OPEC trying to put it out of business; it does not even register with folks that the US shale oil industry has been trying to put US stripper well operators out of business for almost a decade with $2000 per acre lease bonuses, service costs that have gone up 100% since 2010 and LTO over-production that drove the price down 50%. If you are a stripper well operator in America now days you can't make a drilling budget from one day to the next for fear the CFO of EOG, or Pioneer, is going to go on another unfettered spending spree (easy to do with OPM), put 19 more rigs to work some where, and send the price of oil on another death spiral.
I get told all the time that this shale gig is "free enterprise" at its finest; if I can't compete with shale, get out of the stripper well business and work in a bakery. I don't need to compete with the shale business. Who in the hell wants to owe $3.47 billion and pay 20% of total revenue on debt interest? On wells that decline 80% the first three years of production life? Not me, brother.
Lets wait to see if the shale industry can pay all that debt back before we call it a damn revolution. Right now its just a bunch of lousy wells getting drilled on credit. And by the way, before all you shaley folks get grumpy about my comments, remember... you too will be celebrating National Stripper Well Day very soon.
Anyway, this evening hoist a cold one to stripper well operators throughout America, still doing stuff the old fashion way and making money at it. Barely.
Here's to National Stripper Well Day !
Dilly Dilly !!
Hey, I googled it...
