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Modeling of gas generation from the Barnett Shale, Fort Worth Basin, Texas

¹ Central Energy Resources Team, U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, Mississippi 939, Denver, Colorado 80225; ronhill{at}usgs.gov
² Shell International Exploration and Production Company, Houston, Texas 77001; ezhang{at}shellus.com
³ Chevron Corporation Energy Technology Company, Houston, Texas 77002; barrykatz{at}chevron.com
⁴ Petroleum Energy & Environment Research Center, California Institute of Technology, Covina, California 91722; tang{at}peer.caltech.edu

Ronald Hill specializes in petroleum geochemistry and has more than 12 years of professional experience, including his stint in ExxonMobil and Chevron. Currently, he is a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. His interests include the investigation of shale-gas resources and the processes that control petroleum generation. He holds geology degrees from Michigan State University (B.S. degree) and the University of California, Los Angeles (Ph.D.), and a geochemistry degree from the Colorado School of Mines (M.S. degree).

Etuan Zhang received a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University (1994) and joined Chevron as a postdoctoral researcher in 1994 before moving on to Shell in 1997. His research is directed toward understanding the kinetics of petroleum generation and investigation of unconventional resources.

Barry Jay Katz received his B.S. degree in geology from Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics from the University of Miami. He has held various technical and supervisory positions in Texaco's, ChevronTexaco's, and Chevron's technology organizations since joining Texaco in 1979. Barry is currently a Chevron Fellow and team leader for hydrocarbon charge in Chevron's Energy Technology Company.

Prior to joining the California Institute of Technology, Tang had more than 15 years of industrial experience in both upstream and downstream research at Chevron. He is currently the director for the Power Environmental Energy Research Center at the California Institute of Technology. Tang has published more than 80 articles in the field of geochemistry, chemistry, and petroleum engineering. His major research interests are applying molecular modeling and experimental simulation techniques to energy-related problems. He has pioneered the molecular modeling technique to many fields of organic geochemistry, surface chemistry, reaction kinetics, and other petroleum chemistry fields. Tang feels that the major technical barrier of molecular modeling for the petroleum industry is the lack of integration between theory and experiments. Thus, his research group has a strong integration of modeling and experimental efforts. His main research focuses are (1) modeling both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis; (2) geochemical modeling; (3) interfacial phenomenon modeling (liquid-liquid, liquid-solid, and gas-solid); (4) nucleation process; (5) emulsion; and (6) ionic liquids.

The generative gas potential of the Mississippian Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin, Texas, was quantitatively evaluated by sealed gold-tube pyrolysis. Kinetic parameters for gas generation and vitrinite reflectance (R_o) changes were calculated from pyrolysis data and the results used to estimate the amount of gas generated from the Barnett Shale at geologic heating rates. Using derived kinetics for R_o evolution and gas generation, quantities of hydrocarbon gas generated at R_o 1.1% are about 230 L/t (7.4 scf/t) and increase to more that 5800 L/t (186 scf/t) at R_o 2.0% for a sample with an initial total organic carbon content of 5.5% and R_o = 0.44%. The volume of shale gas generated will depend on the organic richness, thickness, and thermal maturity of the shale and also the amount of petroleum that is retained in the shale during migration. Gas that is reservoired in shales appears to be generated from the cracking of kerogen and petroleum that is retained in shales, and that cracking of the retained petroleum starts by R_o 1.1%. This result suggests that the cracking of petroleum retained in source rocks occurs at rates that are faster than what is predicted for conventional siliciclastic and carbonate reservoirs, and that contact of retained petroleum with kerogen and shale mineralogy may be a critical factor in shale-gas generation. Shale-gas systems, together with overburden, can be considered complete petroleum systems, although the processes of petroleum migration, accumulation, and trap formation are different from what is defined for conventional petroleum systems.

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