Utica hides more shale gas than predicted, study shows

Driven in part by production from Marcellus Shale and other shale plays, natural gas has surpassed coal as the leading source of electricity generation in the U.S.

In 2013, a study by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, reported that Marcellus Shale operators produced 2.86 trillion cubic feet of gas. In a 2012 study, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that technically recoverable resources in the Utica were 38 trillion cubic feet of gas and an additional 940 million barrels of oil.

Results of a study by the West Virginia University provide evidence that the Utica play, which spans West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and New York, is much larger than original estimates, and its size and potential recoverable resources are comparable to the Marcellus play, the largest shale oil and gas play in the U.S. and the second largest in the world.

WVU’s study shows that the Utica play contains technically recoverable resources of 782 Tcf of gas and 1,960 MMbo.

“The revised resource numbers are impressive, comparable to the numbers for the more established Marcellus Shale play, and a little surprising based on our Utica estimates of just a year ago which were lower,” said Douglas Patchen, director of the Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium, a program of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at WVU.

LNG World News Staff; Image: API