All things pertaining to the Marcellus & Utica Shale

Barnett Production Comparison to Marcellus

A lot of people seem to be using the Barnett Shale production experience as a comparison for Marcellus. In fact, one of the royalty calculators uses Barnett depletion rates to generate revenue data. A concern has surfaced with this through an analysis of Barnett IP and EUR by Arthur Berman in which he suggested that the Barnett production experience has been relatively poor compared to the hope/hype. If Marcellus plays out the same way, it will be very disappointing. Berman's presentation was at the 2009 ASPO International Peak Oil Confence held last August. Does anyone have information to counter his study? ray c

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ledlights1 on March 10, 2010 at 4:32pm

Mr. Berman has similarly predicted that the Haynesville shale is a poor economic proposition. His conclusions have been discussed a fair amount at gohaynesvilleshale.com He is a consultant who has worked for companies such as Exxon I believe, but he is not a reservoir engineer and many assumptions he makes in his analysis seem very open to question, IMHO. Check out the haynesville site and search for Berman if you want to read comments - some from quite knowledgeable folks.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Reed on March 10, 2010 at 5:37pm

It's my opinion that the royalty calculator uses the depletion rate of the Barnett shale simply because it's the only historical reference we have to utilize. As production numbers become more available and rates of decline become accessible to the public over time we will have a much better idea of exactly what we have.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jean Michel LeTennier on March 11, 2010 at 12:50am

By every measure at every well, the Depletion rats are not comparible to the North East.. As and example in th Souther tier, we can be drilling through up to 7 differant layers of Shale and sand stone as in Delaware county, that is about 3000 feet of shale to go though vs 2-400 feet in the Barnett...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Frank Verret on March 16, 2010 at 1:15pm

First and foremost I promise you this if it was at a Peak Oil conference it was biased. Peak Oil is about the supply running out so......................