Integrated Technical and Economical Methodology for Assessment of Undeveloped Shale Gas Prospects: Applying in the Lurestan Shale Gas, Iran

Shale gas resources can supply the substantial growing demand for clean energy. In comparison with conventional reservoirs, shale gas reservoirs have lower production potential, and selecting the most favorable areas from the broad region of shale gas prospect is very crucial in commercial development. These areas are screened regarding some key evaluation indicators that affect the ultimate recovery of shale gas reservoirs. Many attempts have been made to screen sweet spots by applying the different evaluation indicators. These studies mainly focus on geological sweet spot identification without considering the economic indicators that may influence the order of geological sweet spots for development. The current study introduces a methodology for selecting the best techno-economic spots in undeveloped shale gas regions by integrating the technical and economic criteria. The techno-economic areas are defined as the geological sweet spots with the highest rate of return under the currently employed technology. The economic objective functions for selecting these areas are net present value, internal rate of return, and payback time. To estimate the unknown features for integrating the technical and economic criteria in undeveloped areas, an analogy study is applied. Due to the large number of unknowns and uncertainties in shale gas evaluation and low confidence of deterministic results, a probabilistic approach is used. As the first attempt in shale gas assessment in Iran, the Lurestan shale gas region is evaluated by applying this approach. The results indicate that no selected geological sweet spots in this region are commercial regarding the current cost rates and the available technology in Iran, and it can be considered as a future affordable source of energy.