US to get more than half of gas supplies from tight reservoirs by 2020

The US will get more than half of its natural gas supplies from so-called tight reservoirs by 2020, Royal Dutch Shell estimates.
New technology will allow tapping 500 tcf of unconventional gas resources in North America, enough to supply the US for two decades, said Malcolm Brinded, executive director for the upstream business at Europe's biggest oil company. Shell expects to more than triple tight gas output to more than 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2020.

"Having picked much of the low-hanging fruit, our industry is now focused on more difficult resources, tight reservoirs, fractured carbonates, oil shales, oil sands, and ultra-heavy oil," Brinded said. "Tight gas in North America has rapidly developed into a real game-changer."
The world holds 3,000 tn to 10,000 tcf of technically recoverable tight gas, according to Shell. It competes with StatoilHydro and BP, which are also developing unconventional gas projects in North America. Tight gas is methane locked in impermeable sandstone rock, which prevents the gas from flowing to well.

Shell is targeting 6 bn cf of Canadian tight gas resources, which are difficult to access, after it acquired Duvernay Oil and bought nearby additional acreage in the Montney gas play for a combined $ 6.2 bn, Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer said in October.
Shell and EnCana, Canada's largest gas producer, are already developing a project in northern Louisiana called Haynesville, which targets gas trapped in shale formations.