This digital data release contains the estimated quantities of shale- and siltstone-hosted hydrocarbons in Alberta described in Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey (ERCB/AGS) Open File Report 2012-06. The estimates are for the following units:
- Duvernay Formation
- Muskwa Formation
- Montney Formation
- Combined basal Banff and Exshaw formations in southern Alberta
- North Nordegg Member
- Wilrich Member
For information on the extent and characteristics of the shale and siltstone units and the overall resource assessment approach see Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey Open File Report 2012-06.
For a detailed description of the resource assessment methodology see Alberta Energy Regulator/Alberta Geological Survey Open File Report 2013-13.
These resource tables are associated with the Alberta Township System. Each township may have multiple resource values associated with it for different shale and silstone units.
The probabalistic nature of the resource estimation methodology means that the P10, P50, and P90 values at the township scale (as provided in this release) do not sum to the P10, P50, and P90 values at the assessment unit scale (as provided in Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey Open File Report 2012-06).
This dataset only includes those shale and siltstone units that were evaluated for original hydrocarbons in place for Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey Open File Report 2012-06. There are other geological units included in that report that were not quantitatively assessed and are not included in this dataset.
Only townships that are within the assessed area for a shale or siltstone unit have associated values.
We modelled the shale and siltstone hosted hydrocarbons of select units using a novel method for quantification of uncertainty. The steps are as follows:
1. Map the densely-sampled variables (e.g. depth or thickness) using geostatistical techniques.
2. Model the relationship of secondary variables to the mapped variables (e.g. pressure based on depth).
3. Assign distributions to the other variables (e.g. water saturation) based on the limited samples that are available.
4. Determine the extents of different fluid zones for oil/condensate/gas saturations.
5. Use Monte Carlo simulation to vary all of the input parameters and generate 1000 realizations of the resources in place.
See Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey Open File Report 2013-13 for a full writeup of the methodology.