trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/Y_Oy0K61C-GHf9sxSCUVEA2 content esgSubNav
In This List

US Geological Survey triples estimate of Utica Shale's gas, doubles oil

Podcast

Next in Tech | Episode 49: Carbon reduction in cloud

Blog

Using ESG Analysis to Support a Sustainable Future

Research

US utility commissioners: Who they are and how they impact regulation

Blog

Q&A: Datacenters: Energy Hogs or Sustainability Helpers?


US Geological Survey triples estimate of Utica Shale's gas, doubles oil

The U.S. Geological Survey more than tripled its estimate of recoverable oil and natural gas in Ohio and Pennsylvania's Utica Shale on Oct. 3. The agency said technological advances by horizontal drillers make more resources available than in previous estimates.

The USGS now estimates the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas in the Utica at 1.8 billion barrels of oil and 117.2 Tcf of gas, compared to its previous 2012 estimate of 1 billion barrels of oil and 38 Tcf of gas.

The agency also upped its estimate of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas from the Marcellus Shale 15% from its 2011 estimate to 96.5 Tcf of gas. The estimate did not include the trillions of cubic feet of gas already discovered by Appalachia's producers and booked as reserves, meaning the oil and gas can be extracted and sold within a reasonable time frame.

"Since our assessments in 2011 and 2012, industry has improved upon their development techniques for continuous resources like the shale gas in the Appalachian Basin," Walter Guidroz, program coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program, said in a statement. "That technological advancement, plus all of the geological information we've gained from the last several years of production, have allowed us to greatly expand our understanding of these formations."

The USGS estimated that, combined, the Marcellus and Utica had 214 Tcf of natural gas, an increase of 75% from earlier estimates of 122 Tcf. The agency said the Marcellus has an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of NGLs, while the Utica has 985 million barrels of liquids.

The USGS estimate of the resource scale in Appalachia's two major shales echoed a 2015 study by the West Virginia University's Appalachian Oil and Gas Research Consortium, which was the first to note the deeper Utica had a larger resource potential than its more famous upstairs neighbor, the Marcellus. Throughout much of Appalachia, the two shales of varying thicknesses are vertically stacked, and in parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio drillers can exploit both formations from the same well pad.

The USGS said its estimate subtracted oil and gas already produced from the two shales. The agency noted that its estimate only accounts for undiscovered gas implied by data and geology that is technically — but not always profitably accessible using current drilling and fracking techniques.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's 2015 estimate of proved gas reserves, gas ready to be extracted and sold, was 77.2 Tcf in the Marcellus and 6.4 Tcf in the Utica. These figures must be added to the USGS estimate to get a ballpark estimate of the total size of the oil and gas resources available for extraction.

Both the USGS and EIA estimates are well short of the 2008 estimate of Marcellus Shale gas by Penn State geologist Terry Engelder. Engelder's announcement at S&P Global Platts' first-ever Appalachian Shale conference in Pittsburgh that the Marcellus had at least 500 Tcf of gas-in-place, which was later revised to 489 Tcf, is largely credited with igniting a decade-long boom in Marcellus Shale gas production.

S&P Global Market Intelligence and S&P Global Platts are both owned by S&P Global Inc.