Chapter 1: Mississippian Barnett Shale: Introduction and Overview Chapter 2: Geologic Setting, Fort Worth Basin: Tectonics and Structure Chapter 3: Stratigraphy of the Fort Worth Basin: A Summary Chapter 4: Barnett Shale: Detailed Discussion Chapter 5: Geochemistry of the Barnett Shale Chapter 6: Development, Production and Resource Assessment Chapter 7: Re-stimulation in the Barnett Shale: Brief Review of a Case History Study Chapter 8: Selected Bibliography The Barnett Shale represents a major new gas play in North America, with the potential to add significant reserves to the U.S. natural gas base. It is important to keep in mind that the play sprang to life due to the efforts of a single company, Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. (now Devon Energy), which remained dedicated—intellectually and financially—to the Barnett for almost two decades before success was firmly and finally established. The history of the play reveals two crucial points: first, the central role played by independent operators in developing new resources in this part of the world; and second, the importance of scientific and technological advances. Success in the Barnett is largely the result of operators continually searching for new ways to understand the formation and improve production from it. Seeking completion techniques elsewhere, for example, that might be appropriate to apply in this formation—and then testing them—has proved to be pivotal. Light water fracs were not invented for gas shale reservoirs like the Barnett, but it made sense to try them (due to their ability to open large fractures and reduce costs) and they turned out to work excellently. Restimulation, on the other hand, began as an approach for use in low-permeability reservoirs—and the Barnett is certainly of this type— but again, it was Mitchell Energy's foresight to identify this technique (which, in fact, had been used in another gas shale reservoir, the Antrim of the Michigan Basin) as possibly useful in the Barnett.
展开▼
