Posted on 07/17/2015 8:51:50 AM PDT by thackney
The size of the Utica shale play’s technically recoverable resources is larger than previously thought, a recent study by West Virginia University (WVU) has found.
WVU found that the Utica play contains technically recoverable resources of 782 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas and around 1.9 billion barrels of oil. That’s higher than the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) 2012 estimate of technically recoverable resources at 38 Tcf of gas and 940 million barrels of oil.
The study results indicate that the Utica – which spans West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York – is comparable to the Marcellus shale play in terms of size and potential recoverable resources. The Marcellus is the large U.S. shale play and second largest shale oil and gas play in the world.
Most of the Utica play lies beneath the Marcellus. The interval between the Marcellus and deeper Utica plays ranges from 4,000 feet in Ohio to more than 6,500 feet in West Virginia. The drilling depth of the Utica ranges from less than 4,000 feet in Ohio to more than 12,000 feet in West Virginia, which is over two miles below the surface.
The results of the Utica Shale Play Book Study, a two-year geological study undertaken by the Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium, a program at WVU’s National Research Center for Coal and Energy, were presented at a July 14 workshop in Canonsburg, Penn.
“The revised resource numbers are impressive, comparable to the numbers for the more established Marcellus shale play, and a little surprising based on our Utica estimates of just a year ago which were lower,” said Douglas Patchen, director of the consortium and well-known expert on the Appalachian Basin.
The project had three main objectives: assess the geological characteristics of the Utica and equivalent rocks in the northern Appalachian Basin; define Utica oil and gas fairways; and provide resource assessments.
“The research spanned basin-wide subsurface correlation and mapping of potential pay zones to macroscopic and microscopic examination of cores and thin sections of reservoirs to the nano-scale development of porosity in organic rich zones,” Patchen said.
The project officially ended a year ago, but since that time, researchers have continued to work on the resources estimates.
“The more wells that are drilled, the more the play area may expand, and another year of production from the wells enables researchers to make better estimates,” Patchen said in a press statement.
Researchers found that the most productive area of the Utica shale play is neither the Utica nor shale. The most productive area of the Utica is actually the Point Pleasant formation, which sits beneath the Utica and above the Trenton limestone, said Michael Hohn, director of the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, part of the West Virginia Department of Commerce. The Point Pleasant formation also not a shale in the same sense as an uninterrupted, fine grain mudstone like the Marcellus, but alternates between shale and limestone beds.
The resource estimates for the Utica went up significantly over the past year, partly due to the fact that researchers had more up-to-date information, Hohn told Rigzone. Researchers had twice the amount of data this time as they did last year, letting them do a better job of fitting curves for estimated ultimate recovery rates. The production from newer wells is doing much better than older wells, either because of improvements in technology or because producers are better at finding the sweet spots. Hohn imagines that improvements are coming after oil and gas companies – who likely first tackled the Utica using petrophyiscal models from other shale reservoirs – eventually found the techniques that worked best for the Utica.
The technically recoverable resources are part of original gas-in-place estimates of approximately 3,192 Tcf and original oil-in-place of approximately 82,903 million barrels of oil. Hohn said that the researchers did not find the playwide oil recovery factor of around three percent and gas recovery factor of around 28 percent in sweet spot areas to be out-of-range or unusual, given the permeability and porosity of the play. A recovery rate range of 10 to 20 percent in the Appalachian region, even for conventional reservoirs, is not uncommon.
Consortium members include the WVU National Research Center for Coal and Energy; Washington University; the Kentucky Geological Survey; the Ohio Geological Survey; the Pennsylvania Geological Survey; the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey; the USGS; Smith Stratigraphic, and the U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
Consortium sponsors include Anadarko Petroleum Corp.; Chevron Corp.; CNX; ConocoPhillips; Devon Energy Corp.; EnerVest; EOG Resources Inc.; EQT; Hess Corp.; NETL Strategic Center for Natural Gas and Oil; Range Resources; Seneca Resources; Royal Dutch Shell plc; Southwestern Energy and Tracker Resources.
In late June, WVU initiated the United States’ first integrated research initiative on shale gas drilling after months of study and preparation in an effort to monitor well activity, according to a June 29 article by the Register-Herald Reporter. The five-year, $11 million project is the first comprehensive field study of shale gas resources in which scientists will study the shale drilling process from start to finish, according to a WVU press release.
Impressive!
I remember reading back in the 70’s from “experts” that the world would be out of oil by the year 2000. These are the same experts that tell us “climate” change will destroy the world. Perhaps we need to change the definition of “expert.”
Lawyers have a saying: When the facts are on your side, use the facts. When the facts aren’t on your side, use experts.
Using the prices and technology of the 1970s, we would have far less oil to use.
Both of those positions have always seemed to me to be much easier to defend than the convoluted theories espoused by the fossil fuel and global warming groupies.
“I remember reading back in the 70’s from “experts” that the world would be out of oil by the year 2000. These are the same experts that tell us “climate” change will destroy the world. Perhaps we need to change the definition of “expert.””
When I graduated in petroleum engineering in 1973, I was told that I would not have a job in 10 years as the world will be out of oil.
I retired after 41 years last year and the amount of both production and remaining reserves are higher now than then, even after the tremendous of amount of hydrocarbons that have been produced since then.
God’s fantastic gift to all men.
Now I can see why Southern NY wants to secede from Albany.
“Using the prices and technology of the 1970s, we would have far less oil to use.”
Not sure where you were going with that, but that’s a hypothetical uopi threw out that did not happen, and is contrary to all the technological history of the oil and gas industry since its inception that advances are certain to be made.
Like saying that people’s life expectancy would be in the 50s today if not for medical technology over the past hundred years. That is also contrary to what history has told us about medical breakthroughs.
The Utica has more than just gas.
I also remember those future of the world simulation games in science class around 1970. One of the first rules was that natural gas as a consumer commodity would be gone in a few years.
April pipeline price was $2.39 per thousand cubic feet.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9102us3m.htm
WVU found that the Utica play contains technically recoverable resources of 782 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas and around 1.9 billion barrels of oil.
About $1.869 trillion. Not counting the oil.
Thanks my friend- I used Exel and got the same amount. Only off by three 0’s - Government accounting!
What is the Utica Shale?
The Utica Shale is a black, calcareous, organic-rich shale of Middle Ordovician age that underlies significant portions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Quebec and other parts of eastern North America (see Figure 1). In the subsurface, the Utica Shale is located a few thousand feet below the Marcellus Shale, which has become widely known as a source of natural gas (see Figure 2).
| Figure 2: Generalized stratigraphic sequence of rock units surrounding the Utica Shale and Marcellus Shale. The Utica and Marcellus are so geographically extensive that it is impossible to present a stratigraphic sequence that would be correct in all areas. This diagram presents a generalized sequence of rocks that might be present in central and western Pennsylvania. Image by Geology.com. |
The Utica Shale is currently receiving a lot of attention because it is yielding large amounts of natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil to wells drilled in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The United States Geological Survey's mean estimates of undiscovered, technically recoverable unconventional resources indicate that the Utica Shale contains about 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, about 940 million barrels of oil, and 208 million barrels of natural gas liquids [15].
Geologists have long considered the Utica Shale to be an oil and natural gas source rock. Natural gas and oil generated in the Utica Shale have migrated upwards and are produced from reservoirs in overlying rock units. An even greater quantity of oil and natural gas is still trapped in the Utica Shale.
The Utica Shale has not been extensively developed for two reasons: 1) its great depth over much of its geographic extent, and, 2) its limited ability to yield gas and oil to a well because of its low permeability. This is starting to change as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are used to stimulate production. These methods were not extensively used in the Utica Shale prior to 2010.
The Marcellus was the Opening Act
The Marcellus Shale is another organic-rich rock unit that historically attracted limited commercial interest because of its low permeability. However, that changed in 2003 when Range Resources began drilling productive wells into the Marcellus using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies. These methods solved the low permeability problem and produced fractures that allowed fluids to flow through the rock unit and into a well.
Now, just a few years later, the Marcellus Shale has become one of the world's largest natural gas fields, and the Utica Shale - located a few thousand feet below the Marcellus - has become a new drilling target.
The oil and natural gas potential of the Utica Shale is not fully understood. It has only been seriously drilled in eastern Ohio since 2010 (see Figure 1a in right column). However, it is already becoming a significant oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids producer. It is more geographically extensive than the Marcellus (see Figure 1), it is thicker than the Marcellus (see Figure 6), and it has already proven its ability to yield commercial quantities of natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil.
It is impossible to say at this time exactly how large the Utica Shale resource might be because it has only been lightly drilled in western Pennsylvania and in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec, Canada. In central Pennsylvania, where the Utica is deep below the Marcellus, it is virtually untested with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Limited testing suggests that the Utica Shale will be an enormous fossil fuel resource.
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Utica Shale - The Natural Gas Giant Below the Marcellus
Stacked plays in the Appalachian Basin produce multiple natural gas pay zones.
(see link to view these excellent diagrams)
Figure 5a: The cross section above shows the subsurface position of the Marcellus Shale, Utica Shale and the continental basement rock. The line of cross section is shown as line A-B on the inset map. Note that the Utica Shale is about 2000 feet below the Marcellus under eastern Ohio but about 6000 feet below the Marcellus in south-central Pennsylvania. Also note that the Marcellus Shale potential source rock does not extend as far into Ohio as the Utica.
(see link to view these excellent diagrams)
Figure 5b: The cross section above shows the subsurface position of the Marcellus Shale, Utica Shale and the continental basement rock. The line of cross section is shown as line A-B on the inset map. Note that the Utica Shale is about 1800 feet below the Marcellus under western New York but about 5000 feet below the Marcellus in south-central Pennsylvania. Also note that the Marcellus Shale potential source rock does not extend as far into New York as the Utica.
This cross section was compiled by Geology.com using data provided by the Energy Information Administration [1], the United States Geological Survey [2], the Pennsylvania Geological Survey [3], and the U.S. Department of Energy [4].
Much more at the link, including some great diagrams:
http://geology.com/articles/utica-shale/
Not sure how much good this is posted in the Pennsylvania forum. We had a pro-drilling governor with Tom Corbett, but the liberals and unions despised him and he wasn’t good enough for some conservatives. Now he is gone and we have a Democrat governor Tom Wolfe who seems set on taxing the drillers and driving them out of the state.
It was nice while it lasted but we will be just another New York or New Jersey soon, I think.
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