Today’s Financial Times email news alert led with a below-par piece of reporting on a bit of desk research by the US Department of Energy.
No mention either in the headline or first half of the article of the enormous caveats surrounding shale oil’s potential flow rates and profitability. Readers duly shredded the piece in comments but it will be surprising if the FT follows up with more nuanced coverage.
Along with the laughable ‘impending US energy independence’ canard, which regularly pops up as a fact in BBC business news, shale is the great white hope of the ever-more-investment-starved oil and gas businesses, not to mention Wall Street firms servicing pensions funds who desperately need ponzi-level returns to stay afloat.
Investors should read the comments and weep, but it’s a safe bet most of them just read the headline and smiled. Job done FT.
QuadRanting 