Tight gas reservoirs represent a significant and strategically important resource; however, their development remains constrained by a complex interplay of geological, petrophysical, and operational challenges. This breakout session will explore the fundamental barriers that impact the characterisation, evaluation, and efficient production of tight gas assets across diverse basin settings.

Key challenges include the accurate estimation of ultra-low permeability and porosity, uncertainty in saturation determination under high capillary pressures, and the difficulty of identifying producible sweet spots in heterogeneous lithologies. Conventional petrophysical workflows often struggle to resolve these complexities due to limited resolution, scale discrepancies between logs and core data, and the impact of non-ideal rock physics conditions.

In addition, the session will address operational and data-related constraints such as sparse core calibration, variability in completion effectiveness, and the integration of multi-scale datasets (wireline logs, image logs, core, and production data). Emerging approaches, including advanced analytics and machine learning, are increasingly being deployed to bridge these gaps; however, challenges remain in ensuring model robustness, transferability, and geological consistency.

Through open discussion, case studies, and shared field experience, this session aims to identify common pain points and highlight practical pathways to improve characterisation workflows, reduce uncertainty, and enhance decision-making in tight gas developments.