Integrated Geological, Petrophysical and Geophysical Characterization of a World Class Shale Gas Play, Horn River Basin, British Columbia, Canada

The Devonian-aged strata of the Horn River Basin, located in northeast British Columbia, Canada, host a giant shale-gas play with an estimated OGIP of 14.2 trillion cubic metres (500 TCF). Ten distinct mudstone reservoir and non-reservoir lithofacies can be recognized in core, differentiated with a suite of wireline well logs and inverted from seismic data. Reservoir lithofacies are rich in total organic carbon (TOC) and the predominant pore type is organic micro-porosity. These lithofacies are predictable within a sequence stratigraphic framework which allows us to interpret the depositional processes, map the resulting depositional geobodies and thereby optimize the development plan.