The Bureau of Economic Geology’s TORA research consortium recently held a very successful 2022 Annual Meeting at the Bureau. The meeting included a broad spectrum of presentations about the current status of its research as well as an overview of current research plans and future possibilities for study.
TORA’s vision is to be recognized as the premier entity researching U.S. unconventional resource plays and their production capabilities, developing a basin-wide and granular-scale understanding of key factors controlling current and future developments. The research consortium’s mission is to provide its stakeholders with reliable and up-to-date estimates, projections, models, fundamental understanding, and insights at the basin scale for the major U.S. unconventional plays by conducting innovative, integrated research of in-place resource and recoverable volumes, play and well economics, and production forecasts along with their environmental implications.
Fifty-two sponsor representatives joined the meeting, both in person and virtually, and heard informative presentations by 14 speakers on a wide range of topics ranging from the role of natural gas in European and global markets to the produced water challenge in the Permian Basin. Sponsor recommendations for future areas of heightened study included: advancing TORA’s productivity analyses, developing a geomechanical facies classification, and producing basin-to-basin comparisons (particularly Midland vs. Delaware).
TORA project manager Dr. Tim McMahon noted after the meeting that the research team will be brainstorming ways to potentially increase in person participation at the next meeting as it is felt that the resulting personal interaction promotes a high level of discussion and sponsor-to-sponsor exchange of ideas.
For more information about the extensive work of the Tight Oil Resource Assessment research consortium, or to join, please contact Tim McMahon.
