The Domino Effect

Very informative, educational, and entertaining. So easy to read and understand, yet full of real science and industry jargon. Read this book, you are an oil and gas man or woman regardless what industry you were in before, because the shale revolution has changed the oil and gas industry fundamentally so everyone is more or less on the equal footing in this brave new world.

Fast, Accurate

A very insightful overview of the recent developments within the Oil and Gas industry. Rusty does a great job of simplifying very complex markets into a few key fundamental factors.

Over many years as an individual investor, market research analyst, and student of business, tech, and industries, I've always looked for books that would do a good job of explaining industries I'm not familiar with. And really I've never found one, until now -- holy smokes Russell Braziel knocked it out of the park. This is the standard. With its focus on US fracking it doesn't cover every angle of the world oil & gas industry, to be sure. But it's packed with info as tightly as shale is packed with hydrocarbons (er, sorry), but all in a very readable text. And his domino analogy is an excellent way to illustrate the relationships and cause-and-effects of the shale revolution a true methodological gem in making sense of a basket of otherwise random-seeming facts. Just brilliant work.

Mr. Braziel offers a clear and concise description of the energy industry and its transition through the last 20 years. He has identified the black swan of the industry for my generation, the production from shale of natural gas, crude oil, and NGL's. A must read for anyone hoping to understand the dynamics of the energy industry for the past 20 years...or the next. Kudos Mr.Braziel.

Fracking and low energy prices are covered in the mass media as separate issues. Braziel goes back to shale oil, the root cause of them both, and takes the story through, to date, thirty subsequent events. Probably too much for a politician to undertake, but an informed citizen could spend a few hours profitably reading this. In addition, the underlying theme, understated by Braziel, is the enormous national potential realized in the development of the techniques necessary to recover oil and gas from the very deep shale and then transport it around the country. This is a story of entrepreneurial capitalism at work. In the absence of the kind of governmental over regulation that we are now seeing in the financial markets, the oil business men have changed the world. The background to the story is that nowhere else in the world has shale been tapped. It will, as American companies are hired but as of now nobody else has been able to get the job done.

The organization is perfect. All the information builds on what came before. It's very detailed and even gets into the basics of how the chemistry of the different DBHs affect their economics (ex: smaller hydrocarbons have higher vapor pressure and are more difficult to store). The outlook at the end of the book nicely wraps up the impact of everything he talked about before.I read this as a PhD student looking to enter into the energy industry and this was very useful to me.

Was hoping this book would help me understand the American shale driller's ability to respond to mean volatility in WTI prices insofar as it relates to lead time of 'turning on' a suspended well due to low prices. Although the book is a comprehensive overview of the future of energy markets, it did little to increase my understanding. Having previously completed graduate level classes in energy valuation, energy risk management, and derivatives, most of the information was not new to me, with the exception of the last several chapters which justified the cost of the book. For those who have little to no knowledge of the energy markets and who have not kept up with recent news, the book will be helpful.

As I am always saying to myself a book is a good book when you finish it and has the sensation that you are better as human being than at the beginning. So, this book achieves that. I'm not an oil and gas guy and after this book I can say that now I have some understanding around what shale, horizontal fracking and so forth means globally. Well written and I highly recommend this...

- I think that the book explains clearly the overall development of the energy industry in the US- I recommend the book to anyone who is interested in the energy industry, there is no need to have a technical background on the topic

This book offers a very detailed, encapsulating look into energy markets as they stand now and in their relation to history. As an energy analyst this book has helped my macro view of the markets immensely!

Can't praise this one enough. Does shale change everything? No, it's much more important than that.

A questão energética nos Estados Unidos sempre foi crítica. A obra explica como o advento do share gás, revolucionou o mercado norte americano. Importante ressaltar que a revolução do shale trouxe mudanças no tabuleiro do jogo da energia no mundo.