Assessing the production potential of shale gas can be assisted by constructing a simple, physics-based model for the productivity of individual wells. We adopt the simplest plausible physical model: one-dimensional pressure diffusion from a cuboid region with the effective area of hydrofractures as base and the length of horizontal well as height. We formulate a nonlinear initial boundary value problem for transient flow of real gas that may sorb on the rock and solve it numerically. In principle, solutions of this problem depend on several parameters, but in practice within a given gas field, all but two can be fixed at typical values, providing a nearly universal curve for which only the appropriate scales of time in production and cumulative production need to be determined for each well. The scaling curve has the property that production rate declines as one over the square root of time until the well starts to be pressure depleted, and later it declines exponentially. We show that this simple model provides a surprisingly accurate description of gas extraction from 8305 horizontal wells in the United States’ oldest shale play, the Barnett Shale. Good agreement exists with the scaling theory for 2133 horizontal wells in which production started to decline exponentially in less than 10 yr. We provide upper and lower bounds on the time in production and original gas in place.

NOMENCLATURE
Symbols and dimensions of key quantities
Symbol	SI dimensions	Field dimensions
–compressibility		μ cip
–half-distance between hydrofractures	m	ft
–production decline coefficient
–permeability		darcy
–partitioning coefficient
–gas pseudopressure
–cumulative produced mass	kg	ton
–Original gas in place	kg	ton
–molecular weight	kmol	lbmol
–formation thickness	m	ft
–pressure	Pa	psi
–volumetric flow rate		bbl/d
–volumetric cumulative production		bbl
—universal gas constant	J/kmol-K	psi--mol
–recovery factor
–saturation
–time in production	s	month, y
–temperature	K	°F, °C
–specific volume
–molar composition
–compressibility factor
–hydraulic diffusivity
–dimensionless constant for gas production in square root phase
–dimensional constant for gas production in square root phase
–gas viscosity	Pa s	cp
–density
–time to interference	s	y
–porosity
Subscripts and Superscripts
Symbol	Meaning
	adsorbed
	(hydro)fracture
	gas
	initial
	Langmuir
	stock tank conditions
	water
	connate water
∼	dimensionless
∧	specific
0	reference or standard conditions