Despite what the anti-fracking crowd is trying to shut down in Colorado, Pennsylvania, even in Texas, shale drilling will continue. The only things that could shut it down are poor commodity prices or poor lawmaking--the latter always a distinct possibility.

No exploration and production (E&P) company will turn away from returns as high as 50% or 100%, such as in parts of the Eagle Ford or northeast Pennsylvania. Will local governments really turn their backs on higher tax revenue and economic development from shale drilling?

But the conversation cannot be all about the money. When you have 500 fracking opponents speaking over eight hours, often literally in tears, before the Denton, Texas, City Council, you have to pay attention. (Denton upheld its temporary fracking ban that expires this September and will put the matter before voters in November.)

The oil and gas industry cannot keep singing the same old song, “It’s jobs, it’s jobs.” It has to offer a solution beyond Mom, apple pie and the flag.

That’s why the recently issued guidelines for best practices in community relations, issued by the American Petroleum Institute, come not a moment too soon. We would urge all E&P companies and their service contractors to go above and beyond the API recommendations.

First, let’s look at the drilling momentum. The Barclays Research midyear spending survey said U.S. spending will rise 9.6% in 2014, to a record $165 billion, with operators conservatively assuming gas prices of about $4.12, which is actually lower than what they have received year-to-date. Barclays forecast $4.50 in the fourth quarter, a price it said is “supportive of sustained activity in low-cost gas basins including the Marcellus, Cana Woodford and portions of the Barnett and Utica plays.”

Second, let’s look at the remaining potential. Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at the University of Texas, said thousands of undrilled locations remain in all the gas basins, not counting the proved ones that companies have already identified.

Speaking to the Houston Producers Forum recently on the future of shale gas, he outlined why. In the past two years, the BEG has been rolling out its bottoms-up studies of four plays, the Barnett first, followed by the Haynesville, Fayetteville and Marcellus.

It broke each play into tiers based on average well results, from the hot Tier 1 acreage--the core--to the outer flanks where wells are barely economic, if at all. The BEG looked at the total resource in place, current production rates and what percent of the resource is economically recoverable at $4 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf).

In the Barnett, where 16,000 wells have been drilled, “we looked at every one of them, and we concluded there is a lot left to be drilled,” Tinker said. “We ended up with 10 productivity tiers. Now the dogs, you couldn’t make money on even if natural gas went to 50 bucks. But the top tier area is only 70% drilled so far. Put another way, there is 30% more to be drilled. And that’s just in Tier 1.”

The BEG figures if gas is $4, Barnett production peaks this year and if all drilling stops, it will ultimately have produced 45 Tcf through 2030, in the base case scenario.

The recovery factor is another consideration. Tier 1 Barnett wells only recover about 50% of the gas in place, but by the time you get in your pickup and drive out to the Tier 10 area, it’s 3% or less. “We’re looking at a big area where gas will never be recovered, given current technology and price,” Tinker said, “but tiers 2, 3, 4 are the targets we can still go after. They are not drilled up. If the technology is reasonable, there’s a lot of gas still to be recovered.”

The Fayetteville’s Tier 1 acreage is 70% drilled but Tier 2 is only 30% to 40% drilled, so a lot of potential remains. Only 40% of Haynesville Tier 1 acreage has been drilled--certainly a result of lower natural gas prices that made operators hit the pause button in the past few years. The Tier 1 Haynesville wells barely work at $4 for a 10% internal rate of return, Tinker said, because they are so expensive to drill and complete.

Though large parts of very good basins don’t work at current prices, who knows what new technologies are coming down the pike that will change the picture completely in five or 10 years? That’s where the BEG comes into play, providing research; it currently manages 13 oil and gas industry consortia involving scores of oil and gas companies.

Tinker’s final advice to combat industry opponents? “When you have a lack of information you have a monster, so just continue to put out fact-based data. Follow my airplane rule: If you’re sitting next to someone on an airplane and they ask you, ‘What do you do for a living?’ then ruin their flight for the next two hours.”

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