Marcellus Shale's Estimated Nat. Gas Yield Rises to Nearly 500 Tcf

[phantom power]

20 years goes by in a hurry. Then what?

New calculations show the Appalachian Basin's Marcellus Shale formation could yield enough natural gas to supply all U.S. needs for nearly two decades -- dramatically more than previous estimates.

Penn State University geosciences professor Terry Engelder projects nearly 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be produced from the entire formation, which is found in portions of five states, including most of Pennsylvania.

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=78661

[imdjh]

1. Wow. Good news.

[hunter]

2. I'm thinking I'll put some more insulation in my house.

I don't want to be too hot or too cold when I'm old.

Betting on gas from this shale seems a little risky.

[hatrack]

3. If, if, if . . . good commentary from the Oil Drum

"One question I have--if we have as much natural gas as we seem to..."

the devil is in the details. i havent seen the penn state study, but based upon what has been arm waved into existance from proven and probable, possible and speculative technically recoverable resources to "reserves", is based upon a lot, a whole lot, of assumptions.

take the haynesville shale play for example. wells have generally been drilled on 640 ac spacing and presto, hundreds of trillions of resources are created out of thin air simply by assuming that each and every 80 acres tract will produce as much as a typical 640 acre (and greater) well. these potential resources find their way into the media as "reserves".

if you read through the presentations of public traded companies, they use the phrase "based on 80 acre spacing".
these public traded companies dont have any actual performance data to base these figures on (specific to the haynesville), just assumptions. there are no areas of the haynesville in lousianna developed on 80 ac spacing. some of the operators are experimenting with closer spacing.

petrohawk and their jv partners(shell, i believe) have drilled some sections with two wells per section with various spacings between wells. petrohawk, commingles production from these two well units, so individual well data is not available to the public.

based on the location and orientation of many of these first wells, chesapeake, petrohawk and others apparently have contingent plans to drill on much closer spacing.

another thing to keep in mind is that this haynesville play is still very young. the longest producing hz well has just 17 months of data available.

i am in the middle of a public data study of the haynesville and will post something in due course when i feel confident with my conclusions.

performance data for the haynesville doesn't seem to support the often quoted 6.5 bcf/well either, but the data is preliminary. there is some evidence of interference between widely spaced wells in areas of more intense developement.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5614#comments_top

[Nihil]

4. "20 years goes by in a hurry. Then what?"

Then the people who would have successfully conned the ignorant public
into paying for the former's luxury lifestyle & retirement funds will
have slipped into hiding (apart from a quiet chuckling sound) while
the truth about the "could be produced" emerges ... the last stages
involving a wailing & gnashing of teeth (etc.) as all of the dipsticks
who thought that they could avoid the expense of moving to alternative
technologies in the intervening period suddenly wake up to painful
reality.

Some people really cannot grasp the problem of consuming fossil fuels.
Other people get rich from the stupidity of the first group.