Natural Gas Production in the Barnett -- Staggering

This study was reported earlier at the Oil & Gas Journal. Now Rigzone is commenting on the same story. This linked article below has nice graphics, and longer discussion.

Rigzone is reporting:

The Barnett Shale in North Central Texas is an important field for the state and the nation's second largest shale gas field. The history of the field's production and the financial performance of operators in the field have played a significant role in fueling the debate over the viability of the shale revolution. For the past 4-5 years there has been a vigorous debate underway about the volume of shale gas resources in the U.S. and elsewhere, and the amount of production that can be extracted from these formations economically. This latter consideration played a part in the debate over the financial performance of operators who have staked their future on the shale revolution. So will this exhaustive study of the Barnett Shale end the debate, or merely provide fuel to continue it?

The study concludes that there is 86 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable free gas in the 8,000 square miles of the field analyzed. As of 2010, the field had produced over 12 Tcf of gas and there was 7 Tcf of gas reserves proven. Of the remaining 67 Tcf of gas remaining, 45 Tcf is located in drilled blocks consisting of 4,172 square miles of the field and 22 Tcf in undrilled blocks. The 45 Tcf in drilled blocks exceeds the estimates of 23.81 Tcf by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of 4,000 miles of active area prepared in July 2011. The 67 Tcf of technically recoverable gas over 8,000 square miles exceeds the EIA estimate for the full Barnett field of 43.37 Tcf, which covered 6,500 square miles. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated 26 Tcf of reserves for the Barnett field in their 2003 assessment that covered 5,000 square miles.

Go to the linked article to see how Rigzone approaches this study.

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