Gas shales are some of the hottest plays in the industry.  The Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin is one of the largest gas fields in the country.  Several analogous plays such as the Fayetteville Shale and Woodford Shales in the Arkoma Basin, the Barnett Shale in the Delaware Basin, and the Floyd Shale in the Black Warrior Basin are also gaining national notoriety.

However, understanding these gas shales require unique techniques and experience to properly evaluate.  Utley Petrophysics has developed new methods for looking at gas shales.  We are able to give clients a new understanding of the potential gas content of their project area.  These methods were originally developed while at Mitchell Energy working as a petrophysicist in the Barnett Shale play.  The Barnett Shale model, while not directly applicable to other gas shales, utilizes these unique techniques

The principal innovation is the use of neural networks to integrate all available core data into a basin-specific model to predict many of the parameters needed to understand gas shales.  Only minimum logging suites are required to apply the model to a well.

Utley Petrophysics, in conjunction with ShaleQuest Partners, has put together a detailed geologic and petrophysical study of the Fayetteville Shale.  The Fayetteville Shale play is currently dominated by Southwestern Energy, but there is substantial interest from several other companies.  The Fayetteville Shale study is available to the public.  More information on the Fayetteville Shale study is available at www.fayettevilleshale.com.

The basic techniques used to analyze gas shale reservoirs have been presented several times by Utley Petrophysics. 

Geologic and Petrophysical Characteristics of the Fayetteville Shale, Insight Info - 7th Annual Gas Shales Summit, Dallas, Texas, May 2008.

Unconventional Petrophysical Analysis in Unconventional Reservoirs - Putting the Puzzle Together in Gas Shales, Houston Chapter SPWLA Spring Seminar, Houston, Texas, May 2005.

Unconventional Petrophysical Analysis in Unconventional Reservoirs - Putting the Puzzle Together in Gas Shales, Permian Basin Study Group SPE Gulf Coast Section, Houston, Texas, Oral Presentation, April 2005.

Unconventional Petrophysical Analysis for Unconventional Shale Gas Reservoirs using Neural Networks, 2005 SPWLA/CWLS Spring Topical Conference, Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, Oral Presentation, March 2005.

Determining petrophysical properties and gas content in the Barnett Shale using a log-based neural network solution, Southwest Section AAPG Convention, Fort Worth, Texas, Oral Presentation, March 2003.

Extracting hidden details from mixed-vintage log data using automatic, high-speed inversion modeling of resistivity and SP logs:  Supplementing incomplete log suites and editing poor quality log data using neural networks, 2003 AAPG Annual Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah, Poster Presentation, May 2003.

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