Houston-based Falcon Group , in partnership with Houston-based Grand Beach Development, is planning a luxury gated community on the eastern end of Galveston.

The development, named the Estates of Grand Beach, features 10 beachfront lots, ranging in size from about two to four acres each. In addition, each lot boasts a minimum of 190 feet of beachfront.

The price point for these luxury homes starts at $1.5 million per lot and offers full-time security and direct beach access and is expected to include usage of a private helipad.

The lead architect for the project is Houston-based Kirksey Architects, and a general contractor has not yet been announced.

See rendering: http://bizj.us/sk481/i/2

Even with oil prices high, drillers are struggling to make real profits off the U.S. shale boom.

You’d think that with drillers getting better, honing techniques and driving down costs, that a 20% increase in investment would bring about a more than commensurate increase in oil and gas production volumes, right? And yet according to Ernst & Young, total U.S. oil and gas production was up “just” 13% on the year.

Oil and gas companies have spent hundreds of billions acquiring acreage, drilling wells, booking reserves, boosting supplies, but in 2012 they proved too good at their job, found too much gas and cratered the gas price.

That basically means that natural gas reserves that were worth $26 billion the previous year became worthless because it cost too much to drill them. This led to a 58% decline in after-tax profits in 2012 over 2011. And you’d better believe the same thing could happen to oil reserves.

There are plenty of reasons why oil prices should be heading up, not down. But it’s worth thinking about what could happen to the American Oil Boom if oil prices slipped just 10-15% from where they are now.

Oil drilling is generating hundreds of billions of dollars of value to the United States right now, in terms of jobs and equipment, and especially the benefit to the national balance of payments of not having to spend $200 billion a year buying foreign oil. But it must be said that when you take into account all the costs incurred in acquiring and developing unconventional oil fields today, many plays are already balanced on the knife-edge of profitability, and any down draft in oil pricing could dry up activity real quick.

The cartel announced that it would “study” the shale oil issue. “If OPEC hopes to maintain any semblance of its cartel pricing power now would be the time for its members to boost their oil output, drive prices down, bankrupt marginal American producers and regain market share for the long-term,” says Ed Hirs, a lecturer in energy economics at the University of Houston, and a member of the Yale Graduates In Energy study group.

If U.S. oil supply growth keeps up at the pace of the last two years, we could add 1 million bpd before the end of 2014. “In short, if OPEC simply declines to reduce its own production quotas in the face of growing U.S. oil volumes, the American producers could grow themselves right out of the

money,” says Hirs.

What’s more, the researchers found an “ unprecedented” jump in the marginal costs of U.S. fields, from $89 a barrel in 2011 to $114 a barrel in 2012. This implies that some U.S. producers were losing money on oil they brought to market — and doing so knowingly, says Bernstein.

Howard Newman, legendary private equity maven behind Pinebrook Road Partners said in a recent talk at Yale that most shale oil fields in the U.S. can still generate a return at $80 a barrel, but that if prices slipped below that producers would cut capital investment in marginal plays to preserve balance sheet strength.

While America is gradually finding its way out of the recession, Texas remains an exception to the overall economic gloom suffered by much of the country.

The Perryman Group has been dealing with statistics and economics for over 30 years.

There is one big statistic where I never cease to be amazed,” Perryman said. “That is that Texas adds 1,200 people to our population every single day, and we’ve been doing it about 16 or 17 years now.”

Perryman cited a variety of reasons why Texas has been less damaged by the recession and faster to rebound than most other states, such as the low cost of living, ports, infrastructure, and a business-conducive tax structure, among others.

“We didn’t do a lot of subprime loans in Texas,” Perryman said. “We did almost no mortgage-backed securities backed by subprime loans in banks of Texas. And as best I can tell, we didn’t side bet a single derivative on a mortgaged-backed security on a subprime loan.”

While Texas makes up about eight percent of the U.S. economy, it also has 40 percent of all new investment, Perryman said.

Houston and the surrounding area is a large contributor to the state growth. Perryman refers to the city as a “three-legged stool,” with its seat held into place by the city’s status as the world’s energy epicenter, the healthcare sciences, and the Port of Houston, which Perryman said has contributed to Texas as being eight percent of the economy yet 14 percent of all U.S. exports.

With the developing world’s growing demand for energy, the 2015 widening of the Panama canal, and the aging of the baby-boomers respectively, the trifecta of the energy, port and healthcare industries will continue to grow the region’s economy.

“It’s because … you’ve actually started to develop your own facilities — your own industry, your own growth — in some very clean, good industries. “In addition…you’re a very attractive place for high-income, well-educated folks to live. And so with that you end up with a lot of resources and not as many issues as other places have, and it puts you in a very good position.”

Houston-based Falcon Group , in partnership with Houston-based Grand Beach Development, is planning a luxury gated community on the eastern end of Galveston.

The development, named the Estates of Grand Beach, features 10 beachfront lots, ranging in size from about two to four acres each. In addition, each lot boasts a minimum of 190 feet of beachfront.

The price point for these luxury homes starts at $1.5 million per lot and offers full-time security and direct beach access and is expected to include usage of a private helipad.

The lead architect for the project is Houston-based Kirksey Architects, and a general contractor has not yet been announced.

See rendering: http://bizj.us/sk481/i/2

Even with oil prices high, drillers are struggling to make real profits off the U.S. shale boom.

You’d think that with drillers getting better, honing techniques and driving down costs, that a 20% increase in investment would bring about a more than commensurate increase in oil and gas production volumes, right? And yet according to Ernst & Young, total U.S. oil and gas production was up “just” 13% on the year.

Oil and gas companies have spent hundreds of billions acquiring acreage, drilling wells, booking reserves, boosting supplies, but in 2012 they proved too good at their job, found too much gas and cratered the gas price.

That basically means that natural gas reserves that were worth $26 billion the previous year became worthless because it cost too much to drill them. This led to a 58% decline in after-tax profits in 2012 over 2011. And you’d better believe the same thing could happen to oil reserves.

There are plenty of reasons why oil prices should be heading up, not down. But it’s worth thinking about what could happen to the American Oil Boom if oil prices slipped just 10-15% from where they are now.

Oil drilling is generating hundreds of billions of dollars of value to the United States right now, in terms of jobs and equipment, and especially the benefit to the national balance of payments of not having to spend $200 billion a year buying foreign oil. But it must be said that when you take into account all the costs incurred in acquiring and developing unconventional oil fields today, many plays are already balanced on the knife-edge of profitability, and any down draft in oil pricing could dry up activity real quick.

The cartel announced that it would “study” the shale oil issue. “If OPEC hopes to maintain any semblance of its cartel pricing power now would be the time for its members to boost their oil output, drive prices down, bankrupt marginal American producers and regain market share for the long-term,” says Ed Hirs, a lecturer in energy economics at the University of Houston, and a member of the Yale Graduates In Energy study group.

If U.S. oil supply growth keeps up at the pace of the last two years, we could add 1 million bpd before the end of 2014. “In short, if OPEC simply declines to reduce its own production quotas in the face of growing U.S. oil volumes, the American producers could grow themselves right out of the

money,” says Hirs.

What’s more, the researchers found an “ unprecedented” jump in the marginal costs of U.S. fields, from $89 a barrel in 2011 to $114 a barrel in 2012. This implies that some U.S. producers were losing money on oil they brought to market — and doing so knowingly, says Bernstein.

Howard Newman, legendary private equity maven behind Pinebrook Road Partners said in a recent talk at Yale that most shale oil fields in the U.S. can still generate a return at $80 a barrel, but that if prices slipped below that producers would cut capital investment in marginal plays to preserve balance sheet strength.

While America is gradually finding its way out of the recession, Texas remains an exception to the overall economic gloom suffered by much of the country.

The Perryman Group has been dealing with statistics and economics for over 30 years.

There is one big statistic where I never cease to be amazed,” Perryman said. “That is that Texas adds 1,200 people to our population every single day, and we’ve been doing it about 16 or 17 years now.”

Perryman cited a variety of reasons why Texas has been less damaged by the recession and faster to rebound than most other states, such as the low cost of living, ports, infrastructure, and a business-conducive tax structure, among others.

“We didn’t do a lot of subprime loans in Texas,” Perryman said. “We did almost no mortgage-backed securities backed by subprime loans in banks of Texas. And as best I can tell, we didn’t side bet a single derivative on a mortgaged-backed security on a subprime loan.”

While Texas makes up about eight percent of the U.S. economy, it also has 40 percent of all new investment, Perryman said.

Houston and the surrounding area is a large contributor to the state growth. Perryman refers to the city as a “three-legged stool,” with its seat held into place by the city’s status as the world’s energy epicenter, the healthcare sciences, and the Port of Houston, which Perryman said has contributed to Texas as being eight percent of the economy yet 14 percent of all U.S. exports.

With the developing world’s growing demand for energy, the 2015 widening of the Panama canal, and the aging of the baby-boomers respectively, the trifecta of the energy, port and healthcare industries will continue to grow the region’s economy.

“It’s because … you’ve actually started to develop your own facilities — your own industry, your own growth — in some very clean, good industries. “In addition…you’re a very attractive place for high-income, well-educated folks to live. And so with that you end up with a lot of resources and not as many issues as other places have, and it puts you in a very good position.”