By OGJ editors
FORT WORTH, Sept. 30 -- Sedimentary basins in the US appear to contain a volume of technically recoverable unconventional gas that is 10 times the ultimately recoverable volume of conventional gas.

All resources are logarithmically distributed in nature, and the lower quality deposits need more expenditures and better technology to develop economically, Stephen A. Holditch of Texas A&M University told the opening session of Oil & Gas Journal's Unconventional Gas International Conference & Exhibition in Fort Worth Sept. 30.

Results of the studies of eight US basins are being configured into software that can be used as advisory points as operators begin to drill, complete, stimulate, and produce shale, tight sands, and coalbed gas reservoirs outside North America, where almost all of this type of drilling has occurred so far, Holditch said.

Based on the findings, which imply that vast quantities of gas can be produced in the world's basins, even Saudi Arabia's state Saudi Aramco has started a tight gas sands research group, Holditch said. Holditch and a large group of his students plan to release more details of the still incomplete findings at a Society of Petroleum Engineers conference in Pittsburgh in mid-October.