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Post contributed by RL Shawver, Reservoir Engineering Analyst
First off, I want to say congratulations.
On February 20th 2013, we at Cabot Oil & Gas have produced 500,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas out of the Marcellus Shale. The number and phrase already starting to quietly float around the office is “Half a ‘T’,” which stands for half of a TCF, or Trillion Cubic Feet of gas. It is a major feat, and deserves a lot of recognition.
There are numerous friends who have sacrificed much to make this happen. We have worked long hours, been moved, dealt with angry land owners and protestors and lawmakers, and watched the ups and downs of the market…. And of public opinion. Each person has made large contributions, and we have achieved something incredible. Each of us, employees and contractors and service companies, has played our part. It is exciting to see where we are heading, and how quickly we will hit a full TCF of gas.
Let’s break down 500,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas. To those not familiar, this seems like a very large ambiguous number. For you who like science, let’s use some comparisons to put things in perspective:
- First, 1 cubic foot is about the size of a basketball. The current population of the continent of North America is somewhere around 500 Million. So imagine the entire population of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico holding a basketball,
and then multiply that by a thousand. Or let’s take it a step further. The entire population of the world is estimated to be at 7 Billion people. That’s each person holding 70 basketballs. - Half a “T” is the energy equivalent of 510 billion MMBTU*. In gasoline, that is the equivalent of 4.47 Trillion gallons of gas – enough to drive 106 Trillion Miles**. That’s enough gas to drive 1/56th of the way to the next Star, or 4.5 million times around the earth. It would also supply 1/9th of the natural gas used in people’s homes for a year in the entire United States+.
It would also be useful to look over some history.
- The first well Cabot drilled in the Marcellus Shale was in 2006, with the first well being turned in line on July 24th of 2008. That means that we produced half a TCF in less than 5 years time.
- As a side note, assuming we stay only at our current production of 1 BCF a day, we would double the production and be at 1 TCF in about a year and a half.
- The original estimate by the USGS for the entire Marcellus shale was 2 TCF of reserves for the ENTIRE field. We at Cabot have already produced a quarter of that. They have since revised their numbers to 83 TCF.
For those who want to compare:
- As of the 3rd Quarter of 2012, the top U.S. producer, ExxonMobil, was producing 3.8 BCF per day. Our current rate of production as a company would put us in the top 10 for dry gas, a jump up from number 18.
- The second largest producer in the U.S., Chesapeake, has++ produced 714 BCF through as many as 432 different wells. At that point, we had produced 450 BCF through 225 wells
I know the title of this blog is “Well Said, Cabot,” but today, I think it should be Good Job, Cabot. As a guest blogger, I’m excited to be the one to congratulate us all, to help us all celebrate a new benchmark. To all of us involved, “Good Job, Cabot!”
*Assuming 1020 BTU gas
**The average fuel economy of all vehicles sold in 2012 was 23.8 mpg.
+The natural gas supplied to all residential households in 2011 was 4.732 TCF.
++As of 12/31/2012, according to all Non Conventional and Marcellus reports from the PA DEP website.
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