Stripper Wells for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLIV

Our Antisocial Network staffers tend to look with scorn on freelancers who completely botch an assignment due to ignorance or failure to prepare. Online freelancers who were paid flat fees for their output at sites like eHow.com and WiseGEEK.com have proven among the worst, perhaps because of a tendency to value quantity – and therefore increased income – over quality. The usual "one tiny trick" pulled by these authors is to find something that looks like it answers the question and then reword it (to avoid plagiarism). If the source isn't on point, however, you end up with utter bullshit; just as returning DotD Angie Bates did in her attempt to answer the timeless question, "What Is a Stripper Well" for AboutMechanics.com.

We'd like to think that an "English and Professional Writing/Editing" specialist like Bates would know that a reader expects the answer to the "what" question in the first paragraph. Unfortunately, Angoe not only didn't define a stripper well in the first paragraph, she completely blew past the definition in the second, prattling that,

"In 2008, over 400,000 stripper wells existed across the United States. Each well only produced ten or fewer barrels of oil a day..."

...thereby emphasizing count over definition. Yes, Angie, a stripper well is a well that produces a small amount of oil or gas each day (ten to fifteen barrels) – but it's equally important to note that strippers are typically once more productive wells that are nearing the end of their production curve. Angie's version of this revelation is,

"A stripper well... extracts oil or gas from the ground at a slow pace, tapping into reserves that are too small or too difficult to extract for the larger companies to find worthwhile. Often these are wells that once produced more oil or gas but are on the verge of being depleted."

First, the "pace" isn't a defining factor for a stripper, the volume is. And second, a reservoir (not a well) that is near depletion isn't "too small or too difficult [to produce]," it is marginal in an economic sense. The 'larger companies" Bates cites here tend to view the low returns from stripper wells as a drain on resources that could be better put to use elsewhere. 

Since Bates' source is a white paper from a consortium of stripper well operators (U. Penn's Stripper Well Consortium), her main thrust is the economic importance of these wells. At one point, she repeats the statistic that, "In 2006, stripper wells accounted for 18 percent of the domestically produced oil and gas in the country." Redundancy aside, that statistic is far out of date because of increases in domestic production from the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. More recent statistics put strippers' contribution to domestic oil production at less than 10 percent of the total and declining (see the graph above).

With out-of-date statistics and a clear misunderstanding of how and why a producing well becomes a stripper, not to mention why the wells produce large amounts of water; Bates has firmly cemented her Dumbass of the Day status, oil and gas division, yet again.

DD - OIL