Conference Review - 2014 SPE Liquids-Rich Basins Conference Learn, strategize, persevere, and optimize: In a nutshell, this was the message imparted in the eight sessions’ 24 presentations and the keynote luncheon speech at the SPE Liquids-Rich Basins Conference (LRBC), held 24–25 September in Fort Worth, Texas. Conference presenters talked mainly about US basins and plays. However, this summary focuses on presentations that might also yield insight into onshore unconventional plays around the world. Production Overabundance With US natural gas production at well over 70 Bcf/D, Dave Pursell, research principal at Tudor, Pickering, Holt, & Company, asked “What do we do with all this gas?” (Fig. 1.) He said natural gas liquids volumes are understated because producers are rejecting a lot of ethane and leaving it in the gas line. Ethane is used to make one of the world’s principal industrial chemicals, ethylene (also known as ethene). Ethylene is the most important organic chemical, by tonnage, that humans manufacture. It is a building block for a vast range of chemicals. Pursell thinks that the US might begin exporting ethane if prices improve. He also said that, in the US, “gas is terrible. It’s always going to be terrible. LNG [liquefied natural gas] can’t come soon enough.” A massive amount of processing and refining construction is under way along the US Gulf Coast, from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama, he said. But there is a labor shortage and a project backlog. In addition, projects are overbudget. Pursell points to high material costs and a lack of skilled labor as the primary roadblocks. “The peak oilers are right, the US has peaked—on conventionals— but they didn’t foresee the rise of unconventionals,” he said. The Myth of Sweet Spot Exploration “Sweet spot exploration is a destructive holdover from a ‘conventional’ mindset— that we want to drill the best possible location first,” said Bill Haskett, senior principal–energy strategy at Decision Strategies. “That tends to drive decisions, but it’s not good.” Above all, said Haskett, “You have to have good rock. Nothing can save you if you don’t.” In actuality, he said, with tight shales, “it’s only the top 10% to 20%— or maybe top quartile—that’s superior to your other wells. But most times we can’t predict coming in.” To just extrapolate from sweet spots, he said, “is statistically improper sampling and also impedes learning.” Haskett said the best approach is to implement a pilot—but with the caveat that “A pilot needs to characterize the opportunity as a whole. It should not attempt to high-grade the area of potential.”