The on-line atlas of Devonian and Silurian sandstone reservoirs for the Appalachian Basin is a continuing effort by NETL to assist industry in the development of new gas resources for the United States. Petroleum industry interest in deeper horizons of the Appalachian Basin has strengthened lately due to the fact that gas production has been almost solely from shallow horizons. Less than 5 percent of the wells drilled are deeper than 7,500 feet in a basin that is over 20,000 feet deep. The potential gas resource is close to eastern customers and pipeline infrastructure that make exploration and development feasible at current gas prices. The project will use the latest in geographic information systems technology for access to the data, once the data are compiled for the Devonian sandstone formations, and will make it easy to access via a website.
Results
The historic resource characterization efforts funded through NETL have included Devonian shale, Trenton Black River dolomite, and an overall assessment of Appalachian reservoirs that the petroleum industry has utilized to develop more gas resources in the eastern United States.
Benefits
The project will continue providing reservoir characterization data for industry application in developing new and deeper gas resources in the Appalachian Basin, resulting in increased knowledge and efficiencies that will boost domestic gas supplies while reducing environmental impacts with fewer wells drilled.
Summary
The current effort continues to be data acquisition and scanning, plus development of the project database and on-line delivery system. The effort to scan all of the well logs, sample descriptions, core photos and core reports related to the tight gas sand reservoirs in the Appalachian Basin is essential complete. In addition, critical maps and cross sections in published and unpublished literature have been scanned and added to the database. The contents of the database were revealed to industry at a recent meeting of more than 1300 geologists and engineers in Pittsburgh. Demonstrations on how to access the data were given at this same meeting.
