'Unconventional' petroleum is developed through anything other than conventional means (essentially vertical and horizontal drilling). This includes shale oil and shale gas (oil or gas which is fixed within relatively fissile shale rock strata, requiring hydraulic fractionation, or 'fracking', for its liberation), coal bed methane (methane adsorbed on to the surface of coal deposits), tight gas (gas trapped within rock formations of such low permeability that fracking is essential) and hydrates (gas trapped within ice-like crystalline water structures). For more information, see: Unconventional Oil & Gas—overview.

A conventional joint operating agreement (conventional JOA) will require modification in a number of ways in order to reflect the nuances of an unconventional petroleum project.

For more information on conventional JOAs, see Practice Notes: The purpose and the principles of the joint operating agreement and Joint operating agreements: operator and non-operating party perspectives.

In 2014 a specifically tailored unconventional petroleum operations JOA was issued by the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN) (formerly known as the Association of International