Citing the highest resource evaluation in its history, the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) says a new natural gas assessment shows the U.S. has a potentially recoverable gas resource base of 2,384 trillion cubic feet (Tcf).

It’s a 26% increase from 2010, when the committee’s biennial assessment was 1,898 Tcf, the PGC noted in a recently-released study. The latest results were the highest resource evaluation in the committee’s 48- year history.

“The PGC’s year-end 2012 assessment reaffirms the committee’s conviction that abundant, recoverable natural gas resources exist within our borders, both onshore and offshore, and in all types of reservoirs—from conventional, ‘tight’ and shales, to coals,” Dr. John B. Curtis, geology and geological engineering professor at the Colorado School of Mines, said in a public statement.

However, Curtis noted that the assessment does not assume a market price for the discovery and production of future gas supply or a time schedule.

The increase is being attributed largely to new evaluations of shale resources in the Atlantic, Rocky Mountain and Gulf Coast regions, the report says.

Breaking down the figures, the committee says the latest assessment of 2,384 Tcf includes 2,226 Tcf of gas that could potentially be recovered from traditional reservoirs. The remaining 158 Tcf could be recovered from coalbed reservoirs.

With an assessment of 1,073 Tcf, shale gas accounts for about 48% of the country’s total potential resources, PGC added.

The report ranks the Atlantic as the richest resource area in the U.S. It accounts for 33% of total U.S. traditional resources. The Gulf Coast and Rockies, meanwhile, together make up 76% of traditional resources.

“Our knowledge of the geological endowment of technically recoverable gas continues to improve with each assessment,” said Curtis. “Furthermore, new and advanced exploration, well drilling, completion and stimulation technologies are allowing us increasingly better delineation of and access to domestic gas resources—especially ‘unconventional’ gas—which, not all that long ago, were considered impractical or uneconomical to pursue.

“Consequently, our present assessment, strengthened by robust domestic production levels, demonstrates an exceptionally strong and optimistic gas supply picture for the nation.”

Comments