We have recently discovered that shales catalytically generate natural gas in real time during production, and that it can comprise over half of produced gas.  For reference, our most recent paper was published this month in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/04/15/rspa.2010.0032.short?rss=1  ), and offers unequivocal evidence that shales can make natural gas catalytically, vs. thermally or desorption.  

I'm wondering whether this new catalytic process would explain why choking back wells improves performance.    Briefly, we believe tha the catalytic reaction that generates gas is highly sensitive to the pressure of methane, getting "turned off" with very high and very low methane pressures.  It gets "ignited" when drilling and fracing lower pressure below a critical ceiling, but if flow is too rapid and thus pressure is allowed to fall too much / too rapidly, we believe the reaction can die.  By choking back, pressure is help higher and the catalytic reaction is sustained, leading to better well performance.  

You can read more about the catalytic science at www.petroleumhabitats.com. 

What do people think about this model?