Barnett Shale is the Largest Natural Gas Play in Texas

The Barnett shale is currently the largest natural gas play in Texas and has become a core development area for such companies as Devon Energy, XTO Energy Inc., Chesapeake Energy and has captivated the professional interest of the independent oil companies. The Barnett shale play has experienced rapid development in Fort Worth Basin of North Central Texas during the last six years. From a humble begining in 1982 covering a small area of Wise County, the play has expanded rapidly since 1998 to include drilling activity in sixteen counties in North Texas.

The Barnett Shale play is estimated by the USGS National Resource Assessment team to contain 32 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of recoverable gas reserves. Newark East Field, the largest producing field in the Barnett shale, now contains over 3,100 wells with published estimates of an ultimate recovery of 2.5 TCF of gas for that single field.

The Ft. Worth Basin occurs from near the Red River in northern Texas to just north of Waco in central Texas. The ancient mountain ranges to the north created sediments to post Barnett time. The Muenster arch and Quatchita folded belt created erosion of a large portion of the eastern section of the Ft. Worth Basin that preludes the occurrence of the Barnett Shale three today.

U.S. Supply-Demand Gap Widens

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, chairman of the Centre for Global Energy Studies, described the U.S. energy situation as "a study in under investment vs. rampant demand" in a speech to the International Energy Agency's Millennium Conference on energy Security in Paris earlier this year. "U.S. energy demand has grown since 1983 at an average of almost 2% [/year], reaching the equivalent of 50 million b/d of oil last year. Primary energy production, on the other hand, has grown by an average of just 0.7% [/year] over the same period, leaving the U.S. with a widening gap between domestic demand and supply," Yamani Said.

Oil & Gas Journal

The latest forecast from the U.S. department of Energy in it's U.S. Annual Energy Outlook show energy demand 30% higher by the year 2020. Considerable development of gas reserves, both in the US and Canada, and a further jump in oil imports to almost two-thirds of aggressive oil demands, would be needed to match such a rise in consumption.