AP Fact-Checks Kasich's Fracking Claim

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

August 2, 2012 | 12:59 PM

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Ohio Governor John Kasich

The Associated Press fact-checks a claim by Ohio Governor John Kasich, and concludes the Republican’s prospects for oil and gas profits are a bit overoptimistic:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s claim that a single energy company could recover $1 trillion worth of oil and gas from the state’s shale is an exorbitant overestimate, according to experts interviewed by The Associated Press.
At current oil prices, that figure represents more than four times U.S. oil production last year. Viewed another way, every drop of oil produced in America for the next four years will be worth roughly $800 billion, based on current prices and production rates.
“I think he’s way off base,” said Arthur Berman, a Texas-based petroleum geologist and independent energy consultant. “My best estimate is he’s probably wrong by a couple of zeroes.”
U.S. crude oil production in 2011 was 2.078 billion barrels. At roughly $100 a barrel, that’s $200 billion worth of oil.