Shale Assessment & Evaluation Consulting
Feasibility Studies for Shale Resources Assessment and Evaluation — Basin, Play, Field, Acreage, or Lease — and Development of a Notional Field Development Plan (FDP), Worldwide
Assign your company's shale and tight gas/oil resources assessment and evaluation project — at the basin, play, field, acreage, or lease level, anywhere around the world — to A&A, and let the high-level, seasoned consultants of the A&A Consulting Team synthesize the geological, geophysical, and engineering picture into a feasibility study and notional field development plan (FDP) your management, equity partners, and lenders can act on.
Avasthi & Associates, Inc. (A&A) is an independent petroleum engineering and geoscience consulting firm. A&A does not sell reservoir data, interpretation software, or brokerage/acquisition-and-divestiture (A&D) services, and does not take a position in the acreage or assets being evaluated — our only business is expert technical consulting, which means our feasibility conclusions, resource estimates, and notional FDP economics are never influenced by a stake in the transaction outcome.
The high-level, seasoned consultants of the A&A Consulting Team have been working on shale resources assessment and evaluation projects for more than twenty years, and are available to conduct state-of-the-art feasibility studies for your company's shale and tight gas/oil resources, around the world. A&A's shale resources assessment and evaluation capabilities include analyzing the geological data, mapping the reservoir parameters, estimating the resource potential, and analyzing the production performance of your target resource. This work can be carried out at the basin or play level, or on an acreage basis — a portfolio composed of a number of leases across a number of areas. A&A consolidates all the individual field studies, generates a notional field development plan (FDP), and provides the resources, reserves, and economic value of the field.
How This Service Fits Within A&A's Shale Consulting Portfolio
A shale assessment and evaluation feasibility study draws on every discipline of the A&A Consulting Team, synthesized into a single, decision-ready report. A&A's dedicated pages below provide the deep technical methodology behind each discipline that feeds into this feasibility study:
• Geological and static (geocellular) modeling: stratigraphic framework, petrophysics, and static-model construction — see A&A's Shale Geological and Static Modeling Consulting page
• Geophysical/seismic inversion: seismic attribute mapping, prestack/azimuthal inversion, and PSTM/PSDM evaluation — see A&A's Shale Geophysical/Seismic Inversion Consulting page
• Dynamic modeling and reservoir simulation: history matching, decline-curve/type-curve (RTA) analysis, and Integrated Asset Modeling — see A&A's Shale Dynamic Modeling Consulting page
• Hydraulic fracturing design and evaluation: fracture design, DFIT, and post-fracturing analysis — see A&A's Shale Fracturing Consulting page
• Broader development strategy: play/resource assessment, horizontal well and pad development planning — see A&A's Unconventional/Shale Resources Development (URD) Consulting page
This assessment and evaluation service is where those individual technical threads come together — reviewed, cross-checked, and rolled up into a single feasibility study and notional FDP, scoped to exactly the basin, play, field, acreage, or lease your company needs evaluated.
What A&A's Feasibility Report Covers
The depth and breadth of A&A's technical and economic expertise is reflected in a comprehensive report on A&A's investigation of your company's shale resources assessment and evaluation project. The report is customized to your company's requirements, and — depending on the type and amount of project data provided to A&A for investigation — typically includes the following:
Overview
• Field history
• Leases available
• Major geographic terrain
Geology
• Stratigraphy
• Gross depositional environments
• Reservoir quality
• Core and pore-system data
Geochemistry
• Total Organic Carbon (TOC)
• Thermal maturity
• Rock-Eval pyrolysis
• Hydrocarbon source potential
• Adsorbed gas content (Langmuir isotherm analysis)
• Fluid type — oil, wet gas/condensate, or dry gas
Geophysics
• Seismic mapping
• Attribute mapping
Petrophysics
• Mineralogical analysis
• Log analysis for TOC, porosity, and water saturation (Sw)
• Permeability estimation
Geomechanics
• Poisson's Ratio
• Young's Modulus
• Brittleness index
• Stress direction
Reservoir Mapping
• Storage
• Deliverability
• Frackability
• Hydrocarbon-in-place volume
Reservoir Performance
• Reservoir pressure
• Diagnostic Fracture Injection Test (DFIT)
• Reservoir fluid characterization
• Rate Transient Analysis (RTA)
• Production forecast
Hydraulic Fracture Modeling
• Net pressure
• Fracture conductivity
• Frac height and frac length
Resources, Reserves, and Economic Value
• Resource and reserves estimation, categorized per SPE-PRMS conventions (Proved, Probable, and Possible)
• Economic value — NPV, IRR, breakeven price, and CAPEX/OPEX profiles for the assessed resource
The Notional Field Development Plan (FDP)
Where a client's objective extends beyond a single well or lease to a broader development decision, A&A consolidates the individual field studies described above into a notional field development plan (FDP) — a development-scenario-level view of well counts, spacing, sequencing, and resource/reserves and economic value, built directly from the feasibility study's technical findings. A notional FDP is intentionally lighter-weight than a full decision-grade FDP study: it is the right tool for an early-stage basin, play, or acreage evaluation, before the field-specific reservoir simulation and probabilistic (P10/P50/P90) analysis of a full decision-grade study are warranted.
Related A&A Service: Once your project is ready to move beyond a notional FDP to a fully simulation-driven, probabilistic (P10/P50/P90) study built to support a major capital-investment decision, please see A&A's Decision-Grade Reservoir Simulation-Driven Field Development Planning (FDP) Studies page.
Presenting Your Results
Whenever requested, the A&A Consulting Team is delighted to present the results of its investigation of your company's shale resources assessment and evaluation project — not only to your company's management, but also to your company's equity partners, financial institutions, and/or the appropriate regulatory authorities — for their approval, and to answer any questions they may have about the results of the investigation and the generated notional field development plan (FDP).
Software and Technical Tools
The high-level, seasoned consultants of the A&A Consulting Team are expert users of industry-standard software and technical tools for state-of-the-art shale resources assessment and evaluation, including:
• Petrel, RMS: for geological interpretation and static modeling
• Techlog and other petrophysical-interpretation platforms: for log-based TOC, mineralogy, porosity, and water-saturation analysis
• A&A-vetted third-party geochemistry laboratories: for Rock-Eval pyrolysis, TOC, and adsorbed-gas (Langmuir isotherm) analysis
• CMG, Eclipse/INTERSECT, tNavigator, PROSPER: for reservoir performance and production-forecast analysis
• StimPlan, GOHFER, MFrac: for hydraulic fracture modeling
• Python, MATLAB: for resource/reserves estimation, economic modeling, and custom analytics workflows
What A&A Delivers
A shale assessment and evaluation consulting engagement with the A&A Consulting Team is built around the practical decisions your company needs to make, including, but not limited to:
• A comprehensive, customized feasibility report — scoped to your basin, play, field, acreage, or lease, and to the data you can provide
• A notional field development plan (FDP), consolidating the technical findings into a development-scenario-level view of the resource
• Defensible resource and reserves estimates, categorized per SPE-PRMS conventions, with economic value (NPV, IRR, breakeven price)
• Presentation-ready results for your company's management, equity partners, financial institutions, and regulatory authorities
• High-quality final reports and executive presentations
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a shale assessment/evaluation feasibility study and a decision-grade FDP study?
A feasibility study and notional FDP synthesize existing geological, geochemical, geophysical, petrophysical, and engineering data into a resource, reserves, and economic-value assessment — the right scope for an early-stage basin, play, or acreage evaluation. A decision-grade FDP study goes further, building a fully calibrated reservoir simulation model and probabilistic (P10/P50/P90) production and economic forecasts to support a specific, major capital-investment decision on a defined field.
What scope of project can A&A evaluate — a single lease, or an entire basin?
Both, and everything in between. A&A's shale assessment and evaluation work is conducted at whatever scale your company needs: a single lease, a field, an acreage position composed of multiple leases, an entire play, or a full basin-level screening.
What data do we need to provide for A&A to conduct a feasibility study?
The scope and depth of A&A's feasibility report depends on the type and amount of project data your company can provide — well logs, core data, seismic, production history, and existing geological/geochemical interpretations all improve the study's resolution. A&A can also advise on what additional data acquisition would most improve the study's confidence.
Can A&A present the feasibility study and notional FDP directly to our equity partners, lenders, or regulators?
Yes. Whenever requested, the A&A Consulting Team is delighted to present the results of its investigation — and the generated notional FDP — directly to your company's management, equity partners, financial institutions, and/or the appropriate regulatory authorities, and to answer their questions.
Does A&A sell data, software, or brokerage/A&D services related to the assets being evaluated?
No. A&A is an independent consulting firm and does not sell reservoir data, interpretation software, or brokerage/A&D services, and does not take a position in the acreage or assets being evaluated, so our feasibility conclusions and resource/reserves estimates are never influenced by a stake in the transaction outcome.
To put the high-level, seasoned consultants, subject-matter experts (SMEs), of the A&A Consulting Team to work on your company's shale and tight gas/oil resources assessment and evaluation projects — around the world — please contact us.
