Barnett Shale

Exxon Mobil says shale boosted reserves in 2012

Irving-based Exxon Mobil said it added the equivalent of 1.8 billion barrels of crude oil and natural gas to its proved reserves last year. About 750 million barrels came from the Bakken and Woodford shales, Exxon said. The world's largest non-state oil company said it ended the year with proved reserves of 25.2 billion barrels equivalent, divided roughly evenly between liquids and natural gas.

Reuters has a story here.

-- Jim Fuquay

An overview of U.S. shale plays

Powell Shale Digest has a one-page summary of production and well data for nine major U.S. natural gas and crude oil shale regions. It shows nearly 36,000 wells, with total production of nearly 23 trillion cubic feet of gas and 682 million barrels of oil and condensate from the Barnett, Fayetteville, Eagle Ford shales, and multiple areas of the Haynesville, Bakken and Marcellus shales. The data is free and the link is here.

(Editor's note: An earlier version of this post used a figure of "nearly 40,000 wells" from the original Powell Shale Digest report. The authors of that report later corrected the number.)

-- Jim Fuquay