Publications

In this time of widespread concern over energy resources, considerable publicity has been given to huge estimates of unconventional natural gas which conceivably could be produced with improved technology and increased prices. Most of this gas is not known to exist, so the estimates of gas in place are highly speculative, although not impossible. Even if the gas actually exists, we cannot now predict that significant amounts can be produced economically. Thus the speculative estimates are not of proven reserves but mainly of undiscovered resources, most of which may not be producible under any foreseeable conditions. Nevertheless, any comprehensive survey of energy resources must include these unconventional gases just as a survey of the world’s metal resources should include the gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc, and other metals contained in seawater, even though the metals are not recovereable by today’s technology and economics. This paper is concerned with one type of unconventional natural gas, that is, gas dissolved in waters beneath the surface of the earth. Dissolved gases can conveniently be divided into two groups: (1) those where the fluid is at or near hydrostatic pressure and (2) those where the fluid pressure is considerably above hydrostatic: i.e. the geopressured fluids.