A USANS/SANS study of the accessibility of pores in the Barnett Shale to methane and water

Shale is an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States. The gas is held in fine pores that need to be accessed by horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing techniques. Understanding the nature of the pores may provide clues to making gas extraction more efficient. We have investigated two Mississippian Barnett Shale samples, combining small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and ultrasmall-angle neutron scattering (USANS) to determine the pore size distribution of the shale over the size range 10 nm to 10 μm. By adding deuterated methane (CD₄) and, separately, deuterated water (D₂O) to the shale, we have identified the fraction of pores that are accessible to these compounds over this size range. The total pore size distribution is essentially identical for the two samples. At pore sizes >250 nm, >85% of the pores in both samples are accessible to both CD₄ and D₂O. However, differences in accessibility to CD₄ are observed in the smaller pore sizes (~25 nm). In one sample, CD₄ penetrated the smallest pores as effectively as it did the larger ones. In the other sample, less than 70% of the smallest pores (