Trends in Tight Gas

Sand Production

Figure 2 shows where the tight gas sand regions are located.
Dr. Robert A. Wattenbarger has over
Figure 3 shows how tight gas sand production has grown in the
40 years experience in the petroleum
major regions from 1970 to 1996. Except for the San Juan Basin,
industry, specializing in reservoir engi-
the production rate has continued to climb for all regions during
neering with emphasis on reservoir sim-
this time. The South Texas region is near the Mexican border but
ulation, well test analysis, and gas well
is not shown in Figure 2. In general, the regions have increased
performance. He was vice president of
production rate not only by adding wells but also by achieving
Scientific Software Corporation in
more productivity per well. Improving technology has been a
Denver for ten years after being
major factor in increasing well productivity.
involved with that companys forma-
tion. Prior to that position, he was a field
engineer and reservoir engineer for Mobil Oil Corporation,
Sinclair Oil Company, Oil Recovery Corporation, and Mobil
Research and Development Corporation in Texas, Oklahoma,
and South America. In addition to years of practical applica-
tions, he has written over 100 technical papers and other publi-
cations. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the
University of Tulsa and his Ph.D. degree from Stanford
University. Dr. Wattenbarger is a professor of petroleum engi-
neering at Texas A&M University.

The growth of tight gas sand production in the U.S. has been
steady and fairly dramatic the last few years. The term tight gas
is actually a misnomer that has became somewhat standard. Of
course, the gas is not tight but rather the producing formation (i.e.,
low permeability). There is an official guideline of a tight gas sand FIGURE 2: A map showing the tight gas basins in the U.S.(1).
that has been used for legislation and regulation purposes: the per-
meability must be less than 0.1 millidarcies. A reservoir is classi-
fied as tight gas if it meets this criterion.
Figure 1 shows production rates for the three categories of
unconventional gas production in the U.S.: tight gas sand, coal bed
methane, and gas shales. It can be seen that tight gas sands domi-
nate unconventional gas production. Tight gas sand production has
increased from 2.5 Bcf/d in 1970 to 9.2 Bcf/d (about 3,400
Bcf/year) in 1996. This represented only 4% of U.S. gas produc-
tion in 1970, but a much more significant 17% in 1996. Although
coal bed methane and gas shale production are increasing, they are
much less significant than tight gas sand production.

FIGURE 3: U.S. tight gas sand production by region. Note that all
regions continue to increase except San Juan Basin(1).

FIGURE 1: Unconventional gas production in the U.S. All three
sources are growing, but tight gas production dominates this category(1).
Economic Factors
The growth of tight gas production is certainly tied to the over-
all growth of the gas industry and is affected by the same econom-
ic factors. Some observers have been predicting for decades that
natural gas would eventually become more valuable and more
plentiful than oil. Fifty years ago, gas was regarded as essentially
a nuisance that came with the discovery and production of oil. It

July 2002, Volume 41, No. 7 17

was common to dispose of produced associated gas by venting it
to the atmosphere because of the limited market and transportation
for gas and the high cost of storing gas by reinjection.
Figure 4 shows that the relative importance of gas and oil has
gradually changed over the years to favor gas. Gas production has
exceeded oil production every year in the U.S. since 1969 on an
energy content (BTU) basis, except for the mid-1980s, and the
margin has been growing in recent years. More importantly, the
wellhead revenue for gas has exceeded the wellhead revenue for
oil since 1992, and the margin is becoming greater. The profit
comparison is even more dramatic since gas is generally cheaper
to find, develop, and produce. A number of changes have taken
place over the last few decades to bring about the growth of gas
production.
FIGURE 4: Total U.S. gas and oil production rates. Note that the
vertical scales are chosen to make the BTU content equivalent for gas
and oil(2,3).
The Gas Market
The demand for gas in the U.S. declined after the early 1970s.
The main reason was a perceived shortage of gas which led to fuel
switching. Legislation then restricted the use of gas since it was
thought to be a limited resource. These factors led to the decline of
gas production until 1986.
The most important factor in the gas market has been the way
in which gas is sold. Legislation in the late 1980s created a sepa-
ration between pipeline companies and gas producers. This led to
a freer market in which producers received competitive prices for
their gas. Previously, producers were paid according to prior long-
term negotiated contracts which did not reflect current market
prices. These long-term contracts tended to hurt the producer and
put a damper on gas production during periods of rising gas prices.
During periods of falling prices, these take or pay contracts
could be disastrous for the pipeline companies.
Since 1986, gas demand has been relatively steady and gas pro-
duction has continually increased. Gas prices have fluctuated but
have been higher than before. The gas price (per BTU) at the well-
head compared to oil price at the wellhead is now about equal,
whereas the gas price was only about 30% of the oil price in the
early 1970s(2-4).
Gas Storage
Underground gas storage has increased dramatically in recent
years, particularly in regions near producing fields. This keeps
wells producing throughout the year rather than the market cur-
tailment that was common in previous years. This has the effect of
increasing annual revenue, making gas wells more profitable.
Tax Incentives for Tight Gas
In addition to the general improvement of economics for gas,
there have also been some added incentives for tight gas wells. The
U.S. government issued a special tax incentive for about a ten-year
18
period for wells which qualified as tight gas wells. This incentive
was equivalent to an increase of about $0.25/Mcf in gas price. This
was especially significant when gas prices were low. Currently,
this incentive is worth about $1.00/Mcf but will soon expire.
Texas has also provided incentives for tight gas production
since the early 1990s. The state production tax (severance tax) is
waived for tight gas wellsa tax that is normally 7.5% of gross
revenue for gas wells. This incentive continues to be an important
inducement for tight gas production.
Physical Characteristics of Tight Gas
Reservoirs
The fluid properties of the gas itself are not particularly remark-
able. Most tight gas is fairly dry with condensate yields less than
20 STB/MMcf. The condensate probably only occurs in the well-
bores and separators and does not form in the reservoir itself. A
typical tight gas sand reservoir may be characterized as low per-
meability, deep, thick, high pressure, and requiring large hydraulic
fracturing treatments to produce at commercial rates. These for-
mations often have unusually low electrical log resistivity, are very
heterogeneous, shaly, and behave as though they are compartmen-
talized pockets of gas.
Low Permeability
Just how low the permeability is in individual reservoirs is not
usually known precisely because of the difficulty in obtaining reli-
able core measurements that represent the reservoir. As noted
before, the official requirement is that permeability must be lower
than 0.1 millidarcy for the reservoir to qualify as a tight gas
reservoir. However, some reservoirs have permeabilities estimated
to be as low as 0.01, 0.001, or even 0.0001 millidarcies (10, 1, or
even 0.1 microdarcies, respectively) according to reservoir analy-
sis. The estimation of permeability according to well test and pro-
duction performance analyses is subject to individual interpreta-
tion and is usually somewhat uncertain. Interpretation usually
depends on assumptions regarding the length of hydraulic frac-
tures or the presence of natural fractures.
Natural Fractures
Although large hydraulic fracturing jobs are required to obtain
satisfactory production rates, it is likely that the occurrence of nat-
ural fractures is probably a factor in making wells produce at com-
mercial rates. Sometimes natural fractures are apparent from core
analysis and other data. In some cases, the natural fractures are so
small that they may not be noticed, but the slightest hint of a frac-
ture may be a primary flow conduit in rocks that are practically
impermeable. Some of the most compelling reasons for believing
that these reservoirs are naturally fractured are deduced from
observing long-term flow behaviour.
The natural fracture system leads to a dual porosity produc-
tion/pressure behaviour. The type of dual porosity behaviour
seems to be the transient type, that is, the flow within the matrix to
the fracture is transient. It is speculated that this transient flow
within the matrix towards the natural fractures causes the linear
flow behaviour that is often observed. This would explain how
transient times can be so extremely longsometimes as long as 20
years.
High Pressure
Not all tight gas reservoirs are high pressure, but the trend is
certainly in that direction as drilling and exploration goes deeper
and deeper. Some recent reservoirs have had initial pressures
greater than 13,000 psia. These are occurring at depths that make
the initial pressure "gradients" as much as 1.0 psi/ft. Deep reser-
voirs tend to have lower permeability and contain gas rather than
oil, so the trend for more tight gas reservoirs will continue as
drilling goes deeper.
The main benefit of high pressure is to allow large pressure
Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology
drawdowns at the wellbore. The pressure drawdown of a high
pressure well may be as much as 10 or 20 times the pressure
drawdown of a lower pressure well. Another factor in increasing
deliverability is the higher density of the flowing reservoir fluids,
giving a higher production rate at standard conditions. However,
this advantage is offset by higher gas viscosity at higher pressures.
These two factors just about balance each other out.
Reservoir Thickness
The most important feature of many tight gas reservoirs is the
massive reservoir thickness. It is somewhat common to have a
gross interval thickness of 300 to 500 feet in tight gas reservoirs.
This is the crucial factor in making these reservoirs economical.
The big question is how much of these gross intervals should be
considered as net pay. The usual porosity cut-off criterion does not
have much meaning in these types of reservoirs even though it is
sometimes used to pick perforation intervals. The more important
issue is how interconnected the pore space is with a natural frac-
ture system and whether the induced hydraulic fractures connect
with the natural fracture system.
Production/Pressure Behaviour
The production behaviour in tight gas reservoirs is quite unusu-
al. As indicated above, transient times tend to be very long because
of the low permeabilitytypically several years and sometimes as
long as 20 years. Transient time is the time it takes for the pressure
effects from the producing well to reach the outer boundaries of
the well drainage area. So the decline curve of a tight gas well
will show a decline in production rate because of transient effects
for a long period of time rather than the usual pressure decline
effects. This characteristic is important in predicting rates and esti-
mating ultimate recovery.
Figure 5 shows the production decline of a tight gas well(5).
This is a clear case of transient behaviour for an extended period
of time. This well had produced for 43 years and is located in
Mexico, so it was not subjected to seasonal production variations
that complicates the analysis of many U.S. wells. To make the
analysis of this well even more ideal, this is the only well in the
reservoir and it was not hydraulically fractured.
FIGURE 5: A production decline curve for a tight gas well in Mexico.
The slope of 0.5 indicates that linear transient flow dominates for 18.2
years(5).
The production performance in Figure 5 shows transient linear
flow for the first 18.2 years, represented by a half slope (log-log
slope = 0.5) during that period. A square root of time plot of the
data exactly fits the analytical solution for constant wellbore pres-
sure throughout the transient and also the depletion periods. Thus,
linear transient flow seems to be the producing mechanism for this
reservoir. There are at least two interpretations of this linear flow:
(1) the linear flow could be vertical into the higher permeability
perforated zone (20 feet perforated, 590 feet gross thickness); or,
(2) the linear flow could be flowing inside the matrix blocks into a
July 2002, Volume 41, No. 7
naturally fractured system. The first interpretation gives a calcu-
lated permeability of 0.00011 millidarcies (0.11 microdarcies).
The second interpretation could give a much lower permeability if
the cross-sectional area of the system of natural fractures is
extremely high.
Another important point in Figure 5 is that this well was not
hydraulically fractured, whereas most tight gas wells are. When
one thinks of linear flow in a hydraulically fractured well, the
usual concept is linear flow perpendicular to the hydraulic fracture
plane. After this linear flow period ends, theory suggests that one
would expect pseudo-radial flow. However, we have not observed
this tendency toward pseudo-radial flow (pseudo-radial flow
would be indicated by the log-log plots bending up after the half
slope period.). The log-log plots tend to bend down after the half
slope (linear) period, showing the effects of the outer boundaries.
So, our observation is that the flow behaviour in tight gas wells is
unique. Hydraulic fractures are often necessary to obtain sufficient
production rates, but the production behaviour does not follow the
usual pattern for hydraulically fractured wells.
The permeability is so low in these tight gas reservoirs that it is
common to perform production and ultimate recovery analysis on
an individual well basis, ignoring interference between wells. This
is probably not a bad practice and may give reasonable estimates
of ultimate recovery. However, when new wells are drilled in a
developed reservoir, the RFT (repeat formation tester) data often
shows evidence of interference in some zones of a reservoir. This
has led in some cases to a more complete reservoir analysis with
full field, multi-layer reservoir simulation. Reservoir simulation
results can often give a better estimate of ultimate recovery in this
situation. Also, reservoir simulation may be the best way to answer
questions about the need for infill drilling locations.
Other wells have shown bilinear flow for times of up to one
year, evidenced by a slope = 0.25 on the log-log plot(6). This is
characteristic of linear flow into a perpendicular linear flow path.
This type of flow is usually associated with early flow into a
hydraulic fracture with limited conductivity. In these cases howev-
er, the flow conductivities of the hydraulic fractures are much too
high to see bilinear flow for any significant period of time.
Other Technical Factors
In addition to the steady economic influence on developing
tight gas reservoirs, a number of technical factors have also con-
tributed. Modern methods in exploration, completion and stimula-
tion, and production have had a big influence. It is certainly true
that outstanding reservoirs are now being produced that would
have been simply drilled through and ignored in the past. Figure 6
shows production rates from a South Texas field. The original pro-
duction began in 1969 and was rather depleted by 1994. These
wells did not have high initial production ratestypical initial
rates were in the range of 1 to 5 MMcf/D. Many wells were not
FIGURE 6: Gas production rate of a South Texas tight gas field
(Courtesy of El Paso Production Company).
19
hydraulically fractured, and the frac jobs were relatively small
when the wells were hydraulically fractured.
The higher production rates after 1994 represent newer wells
with very large frac jobstypically 300,000 pounds of proppant
injected in stages into three or four perforated intervals. These
wells had very high initial production ratesoften in the neigh-
borhood of 20 MMcf/d. The latter high rate production actually
comes from a different reservoir which was an extension of the
original reservoira step-out in the other side of a fault block. But
the reservoir characteristics were similar to the original reservoir
and the reservoir pressure was likewise that of the original
pressure.
Exploration and Development
The new reservoir was discovered with the help of 3D seismic
and interpretation tools. Modern tools include newer 3D computer
visualization software (which can be run on PCs) that was not
available until recently. This allows more rapid and accurate eval-
uation of new prospects or step-outs near existing production.
Another huge factor is simply the knowledge and confidence
that these types of tight gas reservoirs can now be economical.
There have been many cases where explorationists knew where the
gas was but did not know that it would be economic. So newer
economic and completion trends are causing re-evaluation of
passed-over prospects from earlier times.
Stimulation
Many tight gas wells of 30 years ago were completed and pro-
duced without significant stimulation. Hydraulic fracturing jobs
were relatively small by current standards and sand was often used
as a proppant. Consequently, initial production rates were modest.
By contrast, the fracing techniques and magnitude of the jobs have
drastically changed in recent years. Limited entry frac jobs are
designed with several stages of injection. Bauxite proppant is com-
monly used to prevent proppant crushing and reduce imbedding at
the greater depthsas much as 300,000 pounds of proppant being
used is not unusual. This technology has continued to develop with
the help of research, operational experience, and the monitoring of
long-term well histories. We will probably expect to see continual
improvements in this key technology area in the future.
20
Summary
The development of tight gas production has been a gradual, but
steady, trend for several decades. It is now common to see oppor-
tunities in tight gas development that were simply not practical
several decades ago. The development of these opportunities has
depended on a number of factors: the gradually improving eco-
nomics of gas; routine improvements in drilling, completion, and
stimulation techniques of deep reservoirs; and, the general experi-
ence of operators which make tight gas production attractive. All
of these trends should continue to improve in the foreseeable
future and put emphasis on development of tight gas production
and reserves. This trend towards tight gas production should even-
tually spread worldwide.
NOMENCLATURE
Bcf = 109 standard cubic feet
D = day
Mcf = 1,000 standard cubic feet
MMcf = 106 standard cubic feet
REFERENCES
1. HOLDITCH, S.A., The Increasing Role of Unconventional
Reservoirs in the Future of the Oil and Gas Business; a Distinguished
Lecture as SPE President, 2001 2002.
2. WATTENBARGER, R.A., and VILLEGAS, M., Trends in U.S.
Natural Gas Production; Advances in the Economics of Energy and
Resources, Moroney, J.R. (ed.), Vol. 9, 1995.
3. DEGOLYER and MCNAUGHTON, Twentieth Century Petroleum
Statistics; 2000 Edition, April 2001.
4. ENERGY INFORMATION AGENCY, Gas and oil price data from
reports on Internet Web site.
5. AREVALO, J.A., WATTENBARGER, R.A., SAMANIEGO, F., and
PHAM, T.T., Some History Cases of Long-Term Linear Flow in Tight
Gas Wells; Petroleum Society paper 2001-015 presented at Canadian
International Petroleum Conference 2001, Calgary, June 12 - 14, 2001.
6. AREVALO, J.A., GANPULE, S.V., WATTENBARGER, R.A.,
SAMANIEGO, F., et al., Analysis of Long-Term Performance in
Tight Gas Wells: Field Examples; paper SPE 74360, Villahermosa,
Mexico, February 10 12, 2002.
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