Shale Gas Emerges As Hot New Exploration Play In U.S.

It is often said that the toughest parts of the animal make the tastiest soup, provided they are cooked long enough. Something similar is happening in the upstream gas industry in the Lower- 48. Organically rich shale fields have become the hottest exploration and development play in the United States today – even though shale is as hard as concrete and so impermeable that it has often served as the seal over conventional oil and gas reservoirs. Shale is found all over the US, much of it with the potential to produce gas (see map). Most of the attention, however, has focused on the Barnett shale field in northern Texas around Fort Worth. The Barnett is 5,000 square miles, with reservoir ranges from 100 to over 1000 feet of gross thickness, holding between 50 and 200 Bcf of gas per square mile. More than 100 firms have drilled about 4,000 successful wells in the field, and it now produces around 2.5 Bcf/d. This is about 60% of the shale production in the US and 4% of total domestic gas output. The main producing companies are independents led by Devon Energy, which accounts for over a fifth of the field’s total production. Conspicuously absent from this new play are the major oil companies. Download here