Despite a steep decline in rig count in the play (26, according to the most recent Hart Energy Unconventional Activity Tracker) a unique released at the end of February by the University of Texas forecasts the Barnett shale will continue to be a leading source of gas at least through 2030.

The study’s findings lie “between some of the more optimistic and pessimistic predictions of production,” according to a UT news release.

Production in the play peaked in 2012 at 2 trillion cubic feet per year. The study projects a cumulative 44 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of recoverable resources from the play, with annual production declining from the current peak to about 900 billion cubic feet per year by 2030.

The independent study was carried out by the University of Texas’s Bureau of Economic Geology with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and is unique in that it examined production data for 16,000 individual wells to determine areas that remain to be drilled.

“Other assessments have relied on aggregate views of average production, offering a ‘top down’ view of production,” according to the release. The study also used several other factors, including rock quality and variations in gas prices, to make its assessments.

“The study’s model centers around a base case assuming average natural gas prices of $4 for a thousand cubic feet but allows for variations in price, volume drained by each well, economic limit of a well, advances in technology, gas plant processing incentives and many other factors to determine how much natural gas operators will be able to extract economically,” according to the release.

The much-hyped study has been cause for consternation and cause for celebration among American media outlets. “Barnett shale gas to remain profitable,” crowed Fuelfix.com, while Bloomberg cautioned “Barnett shale output to tumble.”

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