Increasing the Odds: Data Analysis of the Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin
Bowman, Thomas, Donald Burch, Eric J. Nelson, and Dwight E.
Roberts
Aspect Abundant Shale LP, Denver, CO
The Barnett Shale is a gas play in the Fort Worth basin whose
appeal is that it is paradoxically both low in risk and high in reward.
The risk is low because there is little doubt that gas exists in
enormous volumes in the Barnett Shale source rock, estimated as
much as 150 BCF per square mile, at depths between 7,000 ft and
8,500 ft. Reward is great because fracture stimulation technologies
and, recently, horizontal drilling, have already yielded more that 2.6
TCF of gas and 8.46 million barrels of hydrocarbon liquids from the
Barnett Shale.
The discovery well for the Newark East (Barnett Shale) Gas
Field was Mitchell Energy's Slay #1 in southeast Wise County,
Texas, completed in December of 1981. Since 1981, over 5,600 wells
have been drilled in the Barnett Shale, including over 2,000
horizontal wells. With the consistently increasing activity in the Fort
Worth Basin some analysis shows that, while many wells are
profitable and some operators are significantly more successful than
others, a tremendous amount of the Barnett Shale wells will possibly
loose money.
Determining where and how an operator is successful in the
Barnett Shale depends on a thorough analysis of the information
available. This analysis and comparisons for the Barnett Shale in the
Fort Worth Basin allows for some generalizations to be formulated,
and allows for some explanations to be presented that will increase
the overall drilling and completion success throughout the play.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90071 © 2007 AAPG Rocky Mountain Meeting, Snowbird, Utah