Cartoon Of the Week

If you are a natural gas producer this cartoon does not need an explanation. The Williston Basin in North Dakota and the Delaware Basin in West Texas are quickly turning from oil to gas resource plays; gas prices at the WAHA Hub in W. Texas are now 50 cents an MMBTU and going down. As a result, wasting associated gas up a flare stack is more and more prevalent in both N. Dakota and Texas.

In the meantime, those dumb asses in the App Basin are still going wide-ass open trying to drill themselves out of financial trouble, an age-old, tried and untrue method in the oilfield that has NEVER worked, ever, in the 125 year history of oil and natural gas.

There is natural gas everywhere now; the stuff is leaking out of the woodwork. The price, as one might expect, is on the express elevator down.

Henry Hub NYMEX

As an indication of just how bleak the financial condition of the shale gas industry is in the App Basin, Moody's just downgraded pretty much all of them to 600 credit score equivalents. If those shale gas guys wanted to buy a new pickup now they'd have to get their mothers to co-sign the note for them.

American consumers who think this all pretty cool stuff need to ask themselves who's going to get oil and gas out of the ground when the shale industry, oil and gas, runs completely out of money and can't drill anymore wells, or ceases to even want to.

And....if you think US LNG exports will help the shale industry sort its mess out, your nuts: