Some 500 pre-registered for last month’s Haynesville Gas Shale Technology Symposium organized by the Dallas chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Keynote speaker Floyd Wilson, chairman and CEO of Petrohawk made the interesting observation that sharing of data among operators has been key to the Haynesville shale development and that it has moved the play 5-6 years ahead of where the Barnett was after a similar amount of drilling time.
Eric Eslinger (Eric Geosciences) presented a box model for the gas shale that described the mineral matrix, bound and irreducible fluids and free gas. Eric Geosciences’ GAMLS clustering analysis package was used to fine tune the log to core correlation and produce a probabilistic lithology log. Eslinger observed that the new logging, coring and sample analysis techniques being applied in shale plays are taxing the ‘old-guard’ log storage technologies like PETRA and Recall. Many companies are having difficulties finding places in traditional data models like PPDM for the new measurements.
Among the exhibitors, Dallas-based Horizontal Solutions International caused a bit of a stir by doing live demos on demand of their upcoming LatNav.NET release that will leverage a web architecture to enable easier loading of survey and log data to their solution for correlating LWD data and generating ‘true stratigraphic position plots.’
Geophysical Data Management showed combined laser scanning of physical facilities with Microsoft Live Meeting to enable virtual site-walks with team members around the world.
Creties Jenkins from Degolyer and MacNaughton reported on the use of Object Reservoir’s Resolve finite element reservoir modeling package to take some of the uncertainty out of material balance, decline curve analysis, and extended transient flow in shale wells. Jenkins also noted that the data availability in the area varied from ‘poor’ (GR logs only, volumes pumped, and daily pressure) to ‘ideal’ (complete modern log suites). Jenkins also warned of the inherent uncertainty in trying to model fracture conductivity vs. half-length, or trying to model a multi-stage frac where complex fractures interfere with each other. He concluded on a sober note—reminding the audience that, ‘we are making economic predictions and looking for drainage areas and estimating ultimate recovery over 30 years with less than 2 years of real production data!’
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