The Booming Barnett Shale

By Gary Clouser - Oil & Gas Investor

Posted August 29, 2006

Frenetic activity quickens the pace in the Barnett Shale amid projections it may be the largest domestic gas play ever.  The Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin in North Texas has grown from a sub-economic, unconventional natural gas play to the largest onshore U.S. gas producing area-with predictions that it may become the most prolific domestic, onshore play. Production from the play now exceeds 1.2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) a day. An estimated 1.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas has been commercially produced from the Barnett Shale. More than 100 companies have drilled a total of about 4,000 successful wells in the field.

The U.S. Geological Survey, in a study now more than two years old, had estimated the Barnett Shale at 26.2 Tcf, which is far below what many geologists now working in the play think.

Kent A. Bowker, an independent geologist and consultant, notes that the government estimates pre-date the geographic expansion of the play and important additional discoveries. He predicts the reserves will be north of 30 Tcf. Bowker, a former geologist of Mitchell Energy, the company credited as the pioneer of the field, says he has been wrong several times about Barnett Shale, always underestimating it.

Horizontal wells can avoid water even when the shale is not protected by the frac barrier. Horizontal wells also are exposed to more pay zone and are able to produce more gas than vertical wells. (Graphic courtesy of Devon Energy)

Fellow Mitchell Energy alum Dan Steward, now a consulting geologist for Republic Energy in Dallas, which has drilled more than 200 wells in the play, is even more optimistic. Steward predicts that Barnett Shale production eventually will exceed a total of 50 Tcf and become the largest U.S. onshore gas field.

Republic Energy, one of the first companies in the play behind Mitchell, has been successful in conducting technical evaluations, acquiring properties, drilling and then selling to others to exploit.

The Barnett Shale is a large complicated play and anyone planning to participate needs to understand its unique geology and engineering as some unknowledgeable producers have learned the hard way, Bowker says.

"The truth of the matter is that no one knows everything about the Barnett Shale. We are still learning," he says.

Bowker, like Steward, credits his former boss, George Mitchell, for having the perseverance and determination to stick with the Barnett Shale field when naysayers said it was too tight to produce economically.