Unconventional Resources Program

Unconventional Natural Gas and Other Petroleum Resources Mission

The mission of the unconventional natural gas and other petroleum resources program element is to increase the supply of domestic natural gas and other petroleum resources through reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of exploration for and production of such resources, while improving safety and minimizing environmental impact.

Resource Opportunities and Priorities

Unconventional natural gas resources are best described as those gas accumulations that are hard to characterize and commercially produce by common exploration and production technologies. These resources are typically located in heterogeneous, extremely complex, and often poorly understood geologic systems, often easy to find but difficult to produce.  For example, while it is not difficult to find large lenticular sand packages in many basins it is very difficult to determine their flow properties from petrophysical well surveys and to design effective completion procedures.  Furthermore, because of their very low permeability, establishing gas flow at a reasonable commercial rate requires costly production stimulation operations. These types of considerations are responsible for the high risk factors and unpredictable results often associated with unconventional gas exploration and development projects that inhibit industry investment in these resources.

The largest volume of unconventional gas in the United States occurs in three specific resources - tight sands, gas shales, and coalbed methane. These three resources occur in numerous geologic basins all across the lower 48 States.  According to the latest estimate by the National Petroleum Council, the volume of technically recoverable gas from these three resources is in excess of 293 trillion cubic feet (TCF).

In addition to being more accessible and having the potential of attracting serious industry participation, these three resources often occur at shallower depths under moderate to low pressure and temperature conditions. Thus, their exploitation may not hinge upon the development of the new materials and technologies that would have to be developed for handling the hostile environments prevailing in other unconventional environments.

The funding available for the Unconventional Resources program element is not sufficient to address all types of unconventional resources and have a measurable impact in a time frame of a few years. As it is desirable for the program to show some initial results in this short time frame, a substantial amount of the early R&D investment will be directed toward gas shales, tight sands and coalbed methane.  However, this prioritization does not preclude research and development on other unconventional resources such as deep onshore gas, complex carbonate reservoirs and basin-centered gas, particularly during the latter years of the program plan and/or in pursuit of research and development aimed at development of longer term objectives.

Unconventional Resources Program Strategic Goals

The Unconventional Resources Program will focus on the following for the 2008 Annual Plan:

Goal #1: Through new technology development and dissemination increase the size of the technically recoverable unconventional gas resource base.

Goal #2: Convert through a focused research program technically recoverable unconventional gas resource to economically recoverable gas that can be harvested in an environmentally sound manner.

Goal #3: Develop technologies for improving unconventional resource recovery with minimum environmental impact.

Goal #4: Develop the R&D Program’s science building capacity; Develop significant industry support and participation; and, Develop a Program with a strong and successful technology dissemination component.

Unconventional Resources Program Activities

Building on a series of workshops and studies conducted by RPSEA and others over the last several years, several key themes were identified, as described in the table below.