Although the US Energy Information Administration recently reported that the Haynesville Shale in February overtook the Barnett Shale in natural gas production, other analysts have weighed in to say "not so fast."
Citing pipeline flow data supplied by Bentek Energy, the EIA earlier in March reported that gas production from the Haynesville overtook the Barnett's volumes in early to mid-February, even after the Barnett's recovery from winter's well freeze-offs earlier in the month.
Using data compiled by Bentek Energy, a unit of Platts, the EIA said Barnett Shale production had been stable at about 5.35 Bcf/d in the first few weeks of the year but fell off sharply in the first third of February, before recovering to about 5.25 Bcf/d by the middle of last month.
Just as Barnett production was just getting back on line, Haynesville production trended sharply upward to reach about 5.5 Bcf/d by mid-February, according to Bentek.
However, following EIA's release of that report, several analysts who track shale gas basin production took issue with it, saying that their data indicates that the Barnett is still the top-producing US shale play.
"I was the first one to question it," Gene Powell, editor and publisher of the Powell Shale Digest, said Monday.
Powell questioned the methodology that underlies the Bentek analysis. "There's nothing wrong with the numbers that Bentek has," he said. The problem, Powell said, is in how EIA used those numbers to reach the conclusion it did.
He said that the study, which relied on pipeline flow data, fails to differentiate among streams of gas in northern Louisiana, which includes Haynesville Shale output and gas produced from other formations in the region.
Powell said he bases his own analysis on production data published by the oil and gas regulatory agencies of Texas and Louisiana, which he contends is a more accurate indication of production volumes than pipeline flow data.
The most recent production data for the Barnett Shale, published by the Texas Railroad Commission -- for the month of January -- pegs output at 5.0 Bcf/d.
Powell estimates that Barnett production for the period of January through early February was between 5.2 Bcf/d and 5.4 Bcf/d.
Also skeptical of the EIA report is George Lippman, of Lippman Consulting in El Paso, who said his data comparing Haynesville and Barnett production differed from that found in the EIA report.
Based on production data from the Texas Railroad Commission, Lippman estimated the Barnett's February production at 5.5 Bcf/d. He compared this with his estimate of 5 Bcf/d of Haynesville production for the same month.
"The Haynesville will surpass the Barnett Shale in the near future. Look at the numbers from November to February," he said. Haynesville production is increasing at a steady pace, while the trend line for Barnett growth has flattened.
"The Barnett Shale is still growing, albeit at a slow pace right now," he said.
For his part, Matt Marshall, Bentek senior energy analyst, defended the company's research and stood by the methodology used in its report to EIA.
He said he took issue with the contention that state-level production numbers were the only trustworthy source of data, pointing out that sometimes such data is as much as five months out of date.
"Some of these shale plays are growing really quickly, too quickly if you are only going to trust production data with a five-month lag," he said.
Marshall also addressed the other major criticism of his methodology; that it doesn't allow Bentek researchers to separate out Haynesville production from that of other northern Louisiana gas plays.
"We have ways to estimate how much of the sample is not Haynesville gas," he said. By examining historic production data, which tells how much gas is coming from vertical, as opposed to horizontal or directions wells, Marshall said he can determine the volume of non-Haynesville gas in a given sample.
He said this data indicates that a small portion, about 950,000 Mcf/d of northern Louisiana gas production is from vertical wells and therefore does not originate in the Haynesville or the closely related Bossier Shale trend.
