What's to be done when there is little opportunity left for domestic greenfield exploration and production? For one, go back to where it all started and give the Appalachian and Illinois basins another look. The 1814 discovery of oil in Ohio was an accident; miners were looking for salt. A year later natural gas was discovered in West Virginia. Fredonia, New York, saw the first intentional attempt to find gas, in 1821. In the mid-19th century, wildcatters found gas in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. "After more than a century, the Appalachian and Illinois basins still contain at least as much oil and natural gas as have been produced to date," says a recent report developed by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission's Appalachian and Illinois Basin directors and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and National Energy Technology Laboratory. It is estimated that technically recoverable resources, including proved reserves, are in the range of 4.8 billion barrels of oil and 79- to 96 trillion cubic feet of gas. "The majority of remaining hydrocarbon resources in these basins exists in unconventional settings-primarily in coalseams, Devonian-age shales, and low-permeability (tight) gas sands." For more on this, see the December issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-993-9320, ext. 126.
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