Star-Telegram: "’Monster’ Wells Epitomize What The Barnett Shale Has Become"

It’s getting tougher to make the list of the 10 biggest “monster” wells in the Barnett Shale natural gas field in North Texas.

To join that select group, a well’s output must average more than 8 million cubic feet of gas per day during its peak month.

Fewer than 1 in 1,000 Barnett wells has attained such a lofty yield for a month, which is enough gas to meet the heating and cooking needs for about 3,300 homes for a year, based on American Gas Association usage data.

While the Barnett Shale underlies more than 20 North Texas counties, the top “sweet spots” are in Tarrant and Johnson counties. All of the 35 biggest wells are in those counties, according to a new report by the Fort Worth-based Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter.

The premier producer, hands down, is the Day Kimball Hill A1 well in Arlington in far southeast Tarrant County, which averaged 12.97 million cubic feet of gas per day in October. It’s the only well averaging more than 10 million cubic feet daily, but all of the top 10 wells averaged 8.2 million or more daily, and all of the top 35 averaged more than 6.3 million daily, which is triple what many typical Barnett wells produce.

Natural gas giant

The big wells epitomize what the Barnett has become — a whopper of a natural gas field, whether measured by state or national standards.

In 2008, the Barnett passed the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico and Colorado (discovered in 1927) to become the most productive natural gas field in America, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Steve Grape, a petroleum engineer and agency official in Dallas, said he won’t have the final 2009 field-by-field production numbers until after he receives data in April.

“In my personal opinion, the Barnett is still ahead — but without numbers to back it up, it’s all hat and no cattle,” said Grape. It’s possible, he said, that the San Juan might have nudged ahead of the Barnett.

Barnett production peaked at 5.1 billion cubic feet per day in early 2009 and is currently about 4.8 billion, said Gene Powell, publisher of the Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter and a veteran petroleum researcher.

Weaker gas prices have pushed down Barnett production, but Powell said the rig count could make a sharp uptick if prices rise to $6.50 or $7. Futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange recently have been below $5.

Tops in Texas

The Barnett is by far the largest gas-producing field in Texas, which leads the U.S. in gas production. And only Russia produces more gas than the U.S.

Texas Railroad Commission data show that the Barnett produced 1.76 trillion cubic feet of gas in 2009, or nearly 10 times the 182 billion cubic feet of the second-biggest field, the Carthage (Cotton Valley) in East Texas. From January through October 2009, the Barnett accounted for 26 percent of Texas’ gas production.

Tarrant County, which historically had minuscule gas production throughout the 20th century, is now the No. 1 gas producer among the states’ 254 counties. There are about 1,000 producing wells within Fort Worth alone, Powell said.

By Jack Z. Smith for the Star-Telegram. March 6, 2010.

SOURCE:
Star-Telegram: “‘Monster’ Wells Epitomize What The Barnett Shale Has Become”

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