IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22532.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trophy Hunting vs. Manufacturing Energy: The Price-Responsiveness of Shale Gas

Author

Listed:
  • Richard G. Newell
  • Brian C. Prest
  • Ashley Vissing

Abstract

We analyze the relative price elasticity of unconventional versus conventional natural gas extraction. We separately analyze three key stages of gas production: drilling wells, completing wells, and producing natural gas from the completed wells. We find that the important margin is drilling investment, and neither production from existing wells nor completion times respond strongly to prices. We estimate a long-run drilling elasticity of 0.7 for both conventional and unconventional sources. Nonetheless, because unconventional wells produce on average 2.7 times more gas per well than conventional ones, the long-run price responsiveness of supply is almost 3 times larger for unconventional compared to conventional gas.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard G. Newell & Brian C. Prest & Ashley Vissing, 2016. "Trophy Hunting vs. Manufacturing Energy: The Price-Responsiveness of Shale Gas," NBER Working Papers 22532, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22532
    Note: EEE IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22532.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ryan Kellogg, 2014. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Investment: Evidence from Texas Oil Drilling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1698-1734, June.
    2. Smith, James L., 2012. "On the portents of peak oil (and other indicators of resource scarcity)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 68-78.
    3. Adelman, M A, 1990. "Mineral Depletion, with Special Reference to Petroleum," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(1), pages 1-10, February.
    4. Ramcharran, Harri, 2002. "Oil production responses to price changes: an empirical application of the competitive model to OPEC and non-OPEC countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 97-106, March.
    5. Cairns, Robert D., 2014. "The green paradox of the economics of exhaustible resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 78-85.
    6. Porter, Robert H, 1995. "The Role of Information in U.S. Offshore Oil and Gas Lease Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(1), pages 1-27, January.
    7. Lutz Kilian, 2009. "Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1053-1069, June.
    8. Vissing, Ashley, 2015. "Private Contracts as Regulation: A Study of Private Lease Negotiations Using the Texas Natural Gas Industry," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 44(2), pages 1-18, August.
    9. Graham A. Davis & Robert D. Cairns, 1998. "Simple Analytics of Valuing Producing Petroleum Reserves," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 133-142.
    10. Catherine Hausman & Ryan Kellogg, 2015. "Welfare and Distributional Implications of Shale Gas," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 71-139.
    11. Libecap, Gary D & Smith, James L, 2002. "The Economic Evolution of Petroleum Property Rights in the United States," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 589-608, June.
    12. Clifton T. Jones, 1990. "OPEC Behaviour Under Falling Prices: Implications For Cartel Stability," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 117-130.
    13. Nystad, Arild N., 1987. "Rate sensitivity and the optimal choice of production capacity of petroleum reservoirs," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 37-45, January.
    14. Timothy Fitzgerald, 2010. "Evaluating Split Estates in Oil and Gas Leasing," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(2), pages 294-312.
    15. Krichene, Noureddine, 2002. "World crude oil and natural gas: a demand and supply model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 557-576, November.
    16. Thompson, Andrew C., 2001. "The Hotelling Principle, backwardation of futures prices and the values of developed petroleum reserves -- the production constraint hypothesis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 133-156, April.
    17. Vissing, Ashley, 2015. "Private Contracts as Regulation: A Study of Private Lease Negotiations Using the Texas Natural Gas Industry," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(2), pages 120-137, August.
    18. Carol Dahl & Mine Yucel, 1991. "Testing Alternative Hypotheses of Oil Producer Behavior," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 117-138.
    19. Griffin, James M, 1985. "OPEC Behavior: A Test of Alternative Hypotheses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 954-963, December.
    20. Edward W. Erickson & Robert M. Spann, 1971. "Supply Response in a Regulated Industry: The Case of Natural Gas," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 94-121, Spring.
    21. Robert D. Cairns and Graham A. Davis, 2001. "Adelman's Rule and the Petroleum Firm," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 31-54.
    22. Paul L. Joskow, 2013. "Natural Gas: From Shortages to Abundance in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 338-343, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hilary S. Boudet & Chad M. Zanocco & Peter D. Howe & Christopher E. Clarke, 2018. "The Effect of Geographic Proximity to Unconventional Oil and Gas Development on Public Support for Hydraulic Fracturing," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(9), pages 1871-1890, September.
    2. Julien Xavier Daubanes & Fanny Henriet & Katheline Schubert, 2021. "Unilateral CO2 Reduction Policy with More Than One Carbon Energy Source," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(3), pages 543-575.
    3. Simona Delle Chiaie & Laurent Ferrara & Domenico Giannone, 2022. "Common factors of commodity prices," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 461-476, April.
    4. Lutz Kilian & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2018. "Structural Interpretation of Vector Autoregressions with Incomplete Identification: Revisiting the Role of Oil Supply and Demand Shocks: Comment," CESifo Working Paper Series 7166, CESifo.
    5. Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2018. "Modeling fluctuations in the global demand for commodities," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 54-78.
    6. Evan M. Herrnstadt & Ryan Kellogg & Eric Lewis, 2020. "The Economics of Time-Limited Development Options: The Case of Oil and Gas Leases," NBER Working Papers 27165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. James Feyrer & Erin T. Mansur & Bruce Sacerdote, 2017. "Geographic Dispersion of Economic Shocks: Evidence from the Fracking Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1313-1334, April.
    8. T. Robert Fetter & Andrew L. Steck & Christopher Timmins & Douglas Wrenn, 2018. "Learning by Viewing? Social Learning, Regulatory Disclosure, and Firm Productivity in Shale Gas," NBER Working Papers 25401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Lade, Gabriel E. & Rudik, Ivan, 2020. "Costs of inefficient regulation: Evidence from the Bakken," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    10. Richard G. Newell and Brian C. Prest, 2019. "The Unconventional Oil Supply Boom: Aggregate Price Response from Microdata," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    11. Gideon Bornstein & Per Krusell & Sergio Rebelo, 2017. "A World Equilibrium Model of the Oil Market," NBER Working Papers 23423, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Smith, James L. & Lee, Thomas K., 2017. "The price elasticity of U.S. shale oil reserves," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 121-135.
    13. Unel, Bulent & Upton, Gregory B., 2023. "Oil & gas induced economic fluctuations and self-employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Charles F. Mason and Gavin Roberts, 2018. "Price Elasticity of Supply and Productivity: An Analysis of Natural Gas Wells in Wyoming," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I).
    15. Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2018. "Structural Interpretation of Vector Autoregressions with Incomplete Information: Revisiting the Role of Oil Supply and Demand S," CEPR Discussion Papers 13068, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Newell, Richard G. & Prest, Brian C., 2017. "Is the US the New Swing Producer? The Price-Responsiveness of Tight Oil," RFF Working Paper Series 17-15, Resources for the Future.
    17. Rebelo, Sérgio & Krusell, Per & Bornstein, Gideon, 2017. "Lags, Costs and Shocks: An Equilibrium Model of the Oil Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 12047, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Soren T. Anderson & Ryan Kellogg & Stephen W. Salant, 2018. "Hotelling under Pressure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(3), pages 984-1026.
    2. Güntner, Jochen H.F., 2014. "How do oil producers respond to oil demand shocks?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Richard G. Newell and Brian C. Prest, 2019. "The Unconventional Oil Supply Boom: Aggregate Price Response from Microdata," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    4. Hilde C. Bjørnland & Frode Martin Nordvik & Maximilian Rohrer, 2021. "Supply flexibility in the shale patch: Evidence from North Dakota," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 273-292, April.
    5. Newell, Richard G. & Prest, Brian C., 2017. "Is the US the New Swing Producer? The Price-Responsiveness of Tight Oil," RFF Working Paper Series 17-15, Resources for the Future.
    6. Bharati, Rakesh & Crain, Susan J. & Kaminski, Vincent, 2012. "Clustering in crude oil prices and the target pricing zone hypothesis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1115-1123.
    7. Golombek, Rolf & Irarrazabal, Alfonso A. & Ma, Lin, 2018. "OPEC's market power: An empirical dominant firm model for the oil market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 98-115.
    8. Okullo, Samuel J. & Reynès, Frédéric, 2016. "Imperfect cartelization in OPEC," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 333-344.
    9. Cairns, Robert D., 2014. "The green paradox of the economics of exhaustible resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 78-85.
    10. Okullo, Samuel J. & Reynès, Frédéric & Hofkes, Marjan W., 2015. "Modeling peak oil and the geological constraints on oil production," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 36-56.
    11. van den Bremer, Ton & van der Ploeg, Frederick & Wills, Samuel, 2016. "The Elephant In The Ground: Managing Oil And Sovereign Wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 113-131.
    12. Petter Vegard Hansen & Lars Lindholt, 2008. "The market power of OPEC 1973-2001," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(22), pages 2939-2959.
    13. Deb, Rahul & Fenske, James, 2009. "A Nonparametric Test of Strategic Behavior in the Cournot Model," MPRA Paper 16560, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Berk, Istemi & Çam , Eren, 2019. "The Shift in Global Crude Oil Market Structure: A model-based analysis of the period 2013–2017," EWI Working Papers 2019-5, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    15. Greene, David L & Jones, Donald W & Leiby, Paul N, 1998. "The outlook for US oil dependence," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 55-69, January.
    16. Parnes, Dror, 2019. "Heterogeneous noncompliance with OPEC's oil production cuts," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 289-300.
    17. Berk, Istemi & Çam, Eren, 2020. "The shift in global crude oil market structure: A model-based analysis of the period 2013–2017," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    18. Okullo, Samuel J. & Reynès, Frédéric & Hofkes, Marjan W., 2021. "(Bio-)Fuel mandating and the green paradox," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    19. Reynolds, Douglas B. & Pippenger, Michael K., 2010. "OPEC and Venezuelan oil production: Evidence against a cartel hypothesis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 6045-6055, October.
    20. Kaufmann, Robert K. & Bradford, Andrew & Belanger, Laura H. & Mclaughlin, John P. & Miki, Yosuke, 2008. "Determinants of OPEC production: Implications for OPEC behavior," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 333-351, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L71 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22532. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.