Abstract
Today, many countries are evaluating unconventional gas resources, which are estimated to exceed 30,000 trillion cubic feet, worldwide. Owing to declining conventional gas production, the U.S. has led the world in development of unconventional gas resources (UGR) and technology over the past 3 decades. To facilitate transfer of unconventional gas technology and development internationally, we developed a software, FAST (Formation Analog Selection Tool), as a tool to objectively and rapidly identify and rank analog formations. FAST software uses an existing database (BASIN) that contains geoscience and engineering parameters for approximately 240 formations in 25 North American basins that are mature for conventional and unconventional oil and gas production. We designed a FAST report module that provides both general and detailed interpretation graphs and tables. FAST reports give an overview of analog results, and they allow insights into the quantitative details of reservoir parameter comparisons. Although the software needs further validation, preliminary testing shows consistent results. Planned and ongoing improvements to FAST include quality checking of formation parameters in the database, assessment of parameter weighting factors, validation of the analog selection performance against the literature and independent studies regarding analog formations, and linkage of FAST with a Drilling & Completion Advisory System to identify the best engineering practices to be applied in early stages of testing analogous target formations.