It looks like the continued improvement in technology for extracting unconventional gas is answering the skeptics concerns about short lived lower production wells. This link is to a Wall Street Journal article that describes how improvements in fracking tech is increasing the production for unconventional wells at a much faster pace than many had ever believed possible. This is good news for Falcon as most of these new practices will be available to Sasol and Origin when they start the horizontal test fracking in the Beetaloo. This link will require a subscription for $2 but should also be available on the net - so I will look for it elsewhere and have posted most of it below the link.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/fracking-gives-u-s-energy-boom-plenty-of-room-to-run-1410728682?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_business

Fracking Gives U.S. Energy Boom Plenty of Room to Run Current Top Gas Well Produces Five Times as Much as Record Setter a Decade Ago

Skeptics of the U.S. energy boom say it can’t last much longer because it requires drilling an ever-increasing number of wells.

But the boom already has lasted longer than anyone would have imagined just a decade ago and has more room to run. That’s because oil and natural-gas wells have become more productive—an unrecognized but potent trend that should keep the fuels flowing. (…)

The U.S. oil-and-gas industry no longer spends its time trying to find new shale formations to tap. Instead, it focuses on finding ways to get more out of the formations it has found. And it is succeeding. (…)

Of course, bigger and better wells come with bigger price tags, leaving drillers more vulnerable to falling energy prices.(…)

Lynn Westfall, the EIA’s director of energy markets and financial analysis, points out that the rig count in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale “has not changed since 2012, but the production per new well has doubled.”

Innovation makes the difference. The federal government recently predicted that oil production would rise through 2019 and then flatten off. But a second scenario in the report assumed that extraction technology would continue to improve, leading crude output to rise through 2040, if not longer.

The recent history of oil wells productivity is similar to that of gas wells. (…)