9/12/16: See an update to this article at the bottom, offered by a major Marcellus/Utica producer.
People always want to know, how much natural gas will the well drilled on my property produce? And tangentially, how much money am I going to make? There are consultants and (very) rough back-of-the-envelope methods for calculating how much a well will produce. However, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin researched the issue, specifically for Marcellus wells, and have made an amazing discovery: The estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) for a Marcellus well can be predicted based on the wells initial production, and the EUR prediction will have “surprising accuracy.” The authors do offer a general, overall average EUR for the over 5,000 wells they analyzed: 3.9 billion cubic feet, or Bcf, of production over the life of the well. But the specific well on your property can only be estimated by looking at its initial production. Here’s some of the highlights from their research…
