The Barnett Shale

The Barnett Shale is a geological formation of fiscal meaning. It belong of Mississippian sedimentary rocks in the U.S. State of Texas. The formation is rough and ready to stretch from the city of Dallas west, top 5,000 square miles and at least 17 counties. It is the second leading oil field in the United States.

Some experts have suggested the Barnett Shale may be the prevalent onto dry land natural gas field in the United States. The field is confirmed to have 2.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and is broadly estimated to include as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resources. Oil has also been start in lesser quantities, but plenty (with recent high oil prices) to be commercially doable.

The Barnett Shale is notorious as a "tight gas" tank, demonstrating that the gas is not without problems pull out. The shale is especially hard, and was nigh on impracticable to fabricate gas in commercial measure from this formation until recent advance were made in hydrofracture know-how (and recent price increases in natural gas prices made the technology economically feasible).

Operators, such as EOG Resources and Devon Energy, have assured in Public Reports (which can be found on their websites) as recently as Mid-2005 that they estimate that 1/3 to 1/2 of the land in these counties, plus "hot" counties like Johnson and Tarrant, will get wells (It would rationally flow that the rest of the land will either get pooled in a unit that will have wells, or get nothing at all if the land is in an principally complex area). There have been few dry holes drilled, however, because machinery like 3D Seismic permit operators to foresee faulting and karsting before they drill and avoid this bad acreage.

Future development of the field will also be laden in part by the fact that major portions of the field are covered by enlargement and will keep on to be, since it is located in portions of the rapidly growing Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Some local governments are explore means where they can drill on live public land (e.g., parks) without troublesome other manners so they may take royal house on any minerals institute, while others are in quest of reparation from drilling companies for damage to roads caused by overweight vehicles (many of the roads are rural and not designed for use by heavy equipment).

Horizontal Drilling in the Barnett Shale

As of 2007, latest progression in the knowledge of horizontal drilling have opened up the latent of the Barnett Shale as a major maker of natural gas. Horizontal drilling has distorted the way oil and gas drilling is done by allowing producers to drill horizontally below neighborhoods, schools and airports. Since much of the gas in the Barnett Shale is stuck under the City of Fort Worth, this new drilling expertise has fashioned a shot for the city. The new technology has convey in a magnificent number of independent producers both large and small, as well as Crown Exploration located in Carrollton, Texas.