IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/arerjl/207739.html

Experiential Gains with a New Technology: An Empirical Investigation of Hydraulic Fracturing

Author

Listed:
  • Fitzgerald, Timothy

Abstract

In conjunction with technologies such as horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing has transformed U.S. and world energy outlooks by adding reserves from unconventional resources. Fracturing was developed by experimentation and experience. This study empirically analyzes fracturing data for wells in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana, focusing on firms’ ability to improve well production over time through collaboration. Results suggest that producers gain from experience with fracturing and that proprietary additives are not generally correlated with greater production but have value for some firms. Experiential gains are stronger for operators than for contractors, but some operator-contractor pairings have productive value.

Suggested Citation

  • Fitzgerald, Timothy, 2015. "Experiential Gains with a New Technology: An Empirical Investigation of Hydraulic Fracturing," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 44(2), pages 1-23, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:207739
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.207739
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/207739/files/ARER2015%2044x2%2005Fitzgerald.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.207739?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kemp, Murray C & Long, Ngo Van, 1980. "On Two Folk Theorems Concerning the Extraction of Exhaustible Resources," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 663-673, April.
    2. Rebecca Achee Thornton & Peter Thompson, 2001. "Learning from Experience and Learning from Others: An Exploration of Learning and Spillovers in Wartime Shipbuilding," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1350-1368, December.
    3. Amigues, Jean-Pierre & Favard, Pascal & Gaudet, Gerard & Moreaux, Michel, 1998. "On the Optimal Order of Natural Resource Use When the Capacity of the Inexhaustible Substitute Is Limited," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 153-170, May.
    4. Janie M. Chermak & Robert H. Patrick, 1995. "Technological Advancement and the Recovery of Natural Gas: The Value of Information," The Energy Journal, , vol. 16(1), pages 113-135, January.
    5. Holland, Stephen P., 2003. "Extraction capacity and the optimal order of extraction," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 569-588, May.
    6. Centner, Terence J., 2013. "Oversight of shale gas production in the United States and the disclosure of toxic substances," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 233-240.
    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. Burnett, J. Wesley, 2015. "FOREWORD: Unconventional Oil and Gas Development: Economic, Environmental, and Policy Analysis," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 44(2), pages 1-15, August.
    2. Smith, James L., 2018. "Estimating the future supply of shale oil: A Bakken case study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 395-403.
    3. 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.
    4. 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).
    5. Michael Redlinger & Ian Lange & Peter Maniloff, 2016. "Interfirm Learning Economies in Drilling and Environmental Safety," Working Papers 2016-10, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.
    6. Montgomery, J.B. & O’Sullivan, F.M., 2017. "Spatial variability of tight oil well productivity and the impact of technology," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 344-355.
    7. Max Harleman & Pramod Manohar & Elaine L. Hill, 2022. "Negotiations of Oil and Gas Auxiliary Lease Clauses: Evidence from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale," NBER Working Papers 30806, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Harleman, Max & Manohar, Pramod & Hill, Elaine L., 2025. "Negotiations of oil and gas auxiliary lease clauses: Evidence from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    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. Oskar Lecuyer & Adrien Vogt-Schilb, 2013. "Assessing and ordering investments in polluting fossil-fueled and zero-carbon capital," CIRED Working Papers hal-00850680, HAL.
    2. Gaudet, Gerard & Moreaux, Michel & Withagen, Cees, 2006. "The Alberta dilemma: Optimal sharing of a water resource by an agricultural and an oil sector," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 548-566, September.
    3. Halvor B. Storrøsten, 2020. "Emission Regulation of Markets with Sluggish Supply Structures," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(1), pages 1-33, September.
    4. Giuseppe Freni, 2016. "Order of resource extraction and factor intensity," Discussion Papers 3_2016, CRISEI, University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    5. Marc Gronwald & Ngo Van Long & Luise Röpke, 2013. "Simultaneous Supplies of Dirty and Green Fuels with Capacity Constraint: Is there a Green Paradox?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4360, CESifo.
    6. Waisman, Henri & Rozenberg, Julie & Sassi, Olivier & Hourcade, Jean-Charles, 2012. "Peak Oil profiles through the lens of a general equilibrium assessment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 744-753.
    7. Freni, Giuseppe, 2009. "Factor intensity and order of resource extraction," MPRA Paper 18790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Renaud Coulomb & Oskar Lecuyer & Adrien Vogt-Schilb, 2019. "Optimal Transition from Coal to Gas and Renewable Power Under Capacity Constraints and Adjustment Costs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(2), pages 557-590, June.
    9. Meier, Felix D. & Quaas, Martin F., 2021. "Booming gas – A theory of endogenous technological change in resource extraction," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    10. Verbruggen, Aviel & Al Marchohi, Mohamed, 2010. "Views on peak oil and its relation to climate change policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 5572-5581, October.
    11. Gérard Gaudet & Stephen W. Salant, 2018. "Modeling Nonrenewable Resources Use with Multiple Demands and Multiple Sources," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(4), pages 737-755, August.
    12. Amigues, Jean-Pierre & Kama, Alain Ayong Le & Moreaux, Michel, 2015. "Equilibrium transitions from non-renewable energy to renewable energy under capacity constraints," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 89-112.
    13. Marc Gronwald & Ngo Long & Luise Roepke, 2017. "Simultaneous Supplies of Dirty Energy and Capacity Constrained Clean Energy: Is There a Green Paradox?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 47-64, September.
    14. Luise Röpke, 2015. "Essays on the Integration of New Energy Sources into Existing Energy Systems," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 58.
    15. Lafforgue, Gilles & Magné, Bertrand & Moreaux, Michel, 2008. "Energy substitutions, climate change and carbon sinks," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 589-597, November.
    16. Istvan, Bessenyei, 2005. "Does market value maximization affect the order of resource exploitation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 1090-1104, December.
    17. Ujjayant Chakravorty & Michel Moreaux & Mabel Tidball, 2008. "Ordering the Extraction of Polluting Nonrenewable Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 1128-1144, June.
    18. Gérard Gaudet & Pierre Lasserre, 2011. "The Efficient Use Of Multiple Sources Of A Nonrenewable Resource Under Supply Cost Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(1), pages 245-258, February.
    19. Julie Rozenberg & Céline Guivarch & Robert Lempert & Stéphane Hallegatte, 2014. "Building SSPs for climate policy analysis: a scenario elicitation methodology to map the space of possible future challenges to mitigation and adaptation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 509-522, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:ags:arerjl:207739. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nareaea.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.