Geology News
Fayetteville Shale Current Events

USGS has released a report about groundwater quality and geochemistry for the Fayetteville Shale gas production area.

A goal of the report was to compare analyses conducted prior to natural gas development with those conducted after drilling and production.

“Natural gas at the TCO Appalachia index has historically been priced about $0.25 per million British thermal units above Henry Hub. However, the spread between these two points in spot markets reflects rough parity now, and in forward markets TCO is priced less than at the Henry Hub.” Quoted from the Energy Information Administration website.

“After decades of hydraulic fracturing-related activity there is little evidence if any that hydraulic fracturing itself has contaminated fresh groundwater. No occurrences are known where hydraulic fracturing fluids have moved upward from the zone of fracturing of a horizontal well into the fresh drinking water.” Quoted from the Association of American State Geologists statement.

The natural gas industry has prepared a movie, “Truthland”, that responds to the HBO movie “Gasland”.

The EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2012 report includes information about projected average production profiles for shale gas wells in major United States shale plays by years of operation.

“The economic impact of natural gas production in the Fayetteville Shale has exceeded projections made in 2008, despite sharply lower gas prices and indications of lower expenditures in the area in 2012 than in 2011.”

“The chances of rogue fractures due to shale gas fracking operations extending beyond 0.6 kilometres from the injection source is a fraction of one percent, according to new research led by Durham University. The analysis is based on data from thousands of fracking operations in the USA and natural rock fractures in Europe and Africa.” Quoted from the Durham University press release.

Rig counts in the Fayetteville Shale of Arkansas have fallen to their lowest level in six years.

“Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination [...] many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs.” Quoted from the University of Texas at Austin press release.

The EIA Natural Gas Weekly Update has an interesting graph that tracks the month-by-month dry gas production growth from various shale gas fields in the United States. For example, it shows that production from the Haynesville Shale started to increase significantly in early 2009 and continued until today the Haynesville is the most prolific dry gas producer.

Many property owners are very surprised when the royalties that they receive from a natural gas well on their property decline sharply. They are learning about production decline curves.