The emergence of unconventional resource plays as a business model for sustainable development has necessitated a new generation of technical expertise in all aspects of the industry. The lion’s share of attention is on shale gas plays, and for good reason. Seemingly a new prospect gets covered in industry news every month. Worldwide, likely recoverable shale gas reserves exceed 250 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) by some estimates, with over 10 times that speculated to be in place.1 With the depletion of many conventional reserves in North America, most shale gas prospects have been sought and discovered on the continent, but undoubtedly the rest of the world will discover even more plays. Compound this with demand outstripping supply, a technical knowledge generation gap, and the rise of natural gas autos, and there are the makings for a highly competitive race to master the unconventional shale gas play.
The need for rapid and accurate risk and economic analysis becomes paramount. Shale gas plays are typified by large yet uncertain areal extents, complex geological, petrophysical and geomechanical factors, and intense capital requirements for drilling, completing and producing. Lacking the conventional source-seal mechanism, there may be large room for error in estimating commercial viability of a prospect. No longer is it prudent to develop a single-point determination of a prospect’s viability, nor does it do justice to the inherent uncertainty. Companies must be able to analyze risk in a way that yields meaningful insights. Doing so will identify key liabilities in the project and compel the company to determine if and how these liabilities may be mitigated to an acceptable degree. As the prize for shale gas grows, and global competition with it, flexible, quick and reliable risk quantification is a powerful asset.
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