德州页岩天然气之殇

    沃思堡市位于方圆5000平方英里的巴奈特页岩天然气田的中心地带。在全美国陷入页岩钻探“大跃进”的年代，沃思堡市是天然气钻探搞得最红火的地方。

    但是现在，“钻探热”在沃思堡已经“退烧”，转而传染到阿肯色州（费耶特维尔页岩田）、路易斯安那州（海恩斯维尔页岩田），然后是宾西法尼亚州、西弗吉尼亚州、俄亥俄州和纽约州（玛西拉页岩田和尤蒂卡页岩田）。由于原油钻探的利润更高，高近人们的兴奋点也自然转移到了能产出原油的页岩田，比如北达科他州的巴肯页岩田和德州南部的鹰堡页岩田。

    “页岩热”已经持续了十年了，所以现在也该对沃斯堡的今昔做一个对比，看看它在当年页岩热刚兴起的时候是什么样子，现在又留下了什么。像很多其它被炒热的经济概念一样，页岩热来得快去得也快。2004年12月，德州北部的土地所有人每签订一英亩土地的租约，能获得500美元的签约奖金，以及一定比例的开采使用费。而四年以后，一英亩土地的签约奖金最高达3万美元。到了今天，一英亩土地的签约奖金大约是5000美元。【我在这方面有第一手的经验：我本人就住在沃斯堡，2011年，我和我妻子与切萨皮克能源公司（Chesapeake Energy）签订了授权其钻探我家所有的三分之一亩土地的租约，我们获得了1239美元的签约奖金，最近我们每月获得的开采使用费是51.54美元。】

    据RigData公司统计，2008年，在页岩热达到最高潮的时候，巴奈特页岩田大概有200个活跃的钻井平台，而且还在不断有人寻找新的钻井点。但是到了今天只剩下了22个。

    据行业网络通讯《鲍威尔页岩摘要》（Powell Shale Digest）的出版方吉恩鲍威尔公司估算，受自然寿命所限，巴奈特页岩田现有的17,546口油气井所出产的油气量正在日益减少，每天大概只能产出49亿立方英尺天然气，比2011年的鼎盛时期下跌了20%多。巴奈特页岩田的天然气储量还能继续开采几十年，如果天然气价格出现了重大跃升（现价格约为每百万BTU4.55美元），使得钻探新井变得更有利可图的话，那么这里的天然气产量可能还会再次上升。同时页岩热也为当地创造了好几千个就业岗位，缓冲了2008年经济危机给本地区带来的冲击。正因为这样，沃斯堡的失业率要远低于美国平均水平。

    但是在渐渐变得沉重的现实面前，“赚快钱”的美梦已经失去了它的光环。巴奈特页岩田分给土地所有者的开采使用费要远低于许多政府官员和土地所有者的预期。另外，它还给沃斯堡当地带来了许多负作用，比如道路破损、市民对环境的担忧，以及层不出不穷的官司。地质学家甚至表示，钻探页岩气所使用的液压破碎法，即利用高压将液态的钻井废弃物打入地下的方法，很可能正是导致了当地几十次小型地震的元凶。

    有一段时间，由于很多人深信开采页岩会给美国带来大量的清洁能源，从而使美国摆脱对外国石油的依赖，同时刺激地方经济的发展，因而“页岩狂热派”一时占据了上风。随着钻井公司为了吃进土地而展开投标大战，不少行业专家断言天然气的“黄金时代”即将拉开大幕。2005年，一家公司的公关人员对《沃斯堡明星电讯报》表示：“巴奈特页岩田的财富就像是舞会上的漂亮女人，每个人都想和她跳舞。”

    对沃斯堡展开最猛烈的追求的是总部位于俄克拉荷马市的切萨皮克能源公司，当时这家公司的CEO名叫奥伯雷•麦克兰登。（切萨皮克能源公司的发言人拒绝对本文发表评论。）

    为了与沃斯堡市本土的XTO能源公司以及其它油气企业争夺当地人的芳心，切萨皮克公司使出了浑身解数。先是花了10万美元为当地警察和消防员建立了一座纪念碑，然后又出资100万美元帮助当地盖了一座新的科学历史博物馆（另外还有四家钻井公司也各掏了100万）。另外还向当地的基督教青年会捐赠100万美元，成立了“巴奈特页岩捐赠基金”。这家总部位于俄克拉荷马州的公司还资助了当地最大的节日活动，将其冠名为“切萨皮克能源公司灯火游行”。为了庆祝钻探协议签订成功，这家公司在城郊附近一个名叫温特沃斯的村子（人口2300人）树立了三块城市界碑，每块界碑的角落上都刻着切萨皮克公司的彩色Logo。

    In the great shale-drilling frenzy that spread fracking across America, Fort Worth, Texas—located at the center of the 5,000-square-mile Barnett Shale natural-gas field—was ground zero.

    The drilling boom has moved on now—first to Arkansas (Fayetteville Shale) and Louisiana (Haynesville Shale), then Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York (Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale). More recently, the excitement has centered on shale fields that produce crude oil, which is far more lucrative, such as the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in South Texas.

    It’s now a decade since the boom began, and that makes it a fit moment to look back at what started in Fort Worth—and to see what it left behind. Like any economic mania, it came and went fast. In December 2004, drilling leases in North Texas brought a signing bonus of $500 an acre, plus a percentage of drilling royalties; four years later, bonuses topped $30,000. Today, any landowner signing a new lease gets a bonus of about $5,000 an acre. (I have some first-hand experience: I live in Fort Worth and in 2011, my wife and I signed a lease with Chesapeake Energy CHK 2.05% for drilling rights on the one-third acre of land under our home. We received a signing bonus of $1,239. Our most recent monthly royalty check was for $51.54.)

    At the peak, in 2008, there were about 200 active drilling rigs in the Barnett Shale, seeking to tap into new gas-production sites. Today, there are 22, according to RigData.

    With 17,546 existing wells steadily producing less over their natural lifespan, the Barnett now yields about 4.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day—a drop of more than 20% from its 2011 peak, according to Gene Powell, publisher of the Powell Shale Digest, an online industry newsletter. Barnett gas production will continue for decades—and could rise again if a big jump in volatile natural gas prices (now about $4.55 per million BTU) makes new drilling more profitable. In the meantime, the fracking boom has created thousands of local jobs, and cushioned the area’s pain since the 2008 recession. Fort Worth’s unemployment rate remains well below the national average.

    But the get-rich-quick dreams have faded, amid a considerably less thrilling reality. The Barnett boom has generated far less royalty income than many public officials and homeowners expected. Permitted even in Fort Worth’s residential neighborhoods, gas drilling has also generated industrial eyesores, broken roads, pollution concerns, and lawsuits. Geologists even link fracking—specifically, the disposal of liquid drilling wastes in underground wells—to dozens of small local earthquakes.

    For a time, euphoria prevailed, amid talk of a vast new clean energy source that would move America toward independence from foreign oil and generate a local economic windfall. After drillers launched a bidding war to snatch up local drilling acreage, industry experts proclaimed the dawn of “a golden age” for natural gas. “Barnett Shale properties are like the beautiful woman at the prom,” one company PR man told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2005. “Everybody wants to dance with her.”

    And no one put the moves on Fort Worth quite like Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy, led by then-CEO Aubrey McClendon. (Through a spokesman, Chesapeake declined to comment for this story.)

    Vying for favor—and acreage—with XTO Energy, a Fort Worth homeboy, and other companies, Chesapeake lavished all manner of blandishments to win the locals’ hearts and minds: $100,000 toward a memorial for police and firefighters; $1 million to help build a new building for the city’s science and history museum (four other drillers chipped in $1 million apiece); $1 million to the YMCA to create the “Barnett Shale Endowment Fund.” The Oklahoma company helped underwrite Fort Worth’s biggest holiday event, rebranded the “Chesapeake Energy Parade of Lights.” In nearby Westworth Village (population 2,300), Chesapeake celebrated its drilling deal by providing three new elegant city-limits signs carved into giant stone slabs—with Chesapeake’s full-color logo etched in a corner of each.