Pennsylvania

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US Energy Agency: PA Driving Northeast Gas Production

August 30, 2011 | 4:42 PM
By Scott Detrow

This chart from the United States Energy Infor­ma­tion Agency illus­trates how Mar­cel­lus Shale drilling is dri­ving the boat, when it comes to nat­ural gas pro­duc­tion in the north­east region. Penn­syl­va­nia, in par­tic­u­lar, has seen a rapid boom, and now leads the way.

EIA.gov

Penn­syl­va­nia is dri­ving north­east gas production

From the EIA website:

Accord­ing to Ben­tek Energy, LLC esti­mates, nat­ural gas pro­duc­tion in West Vir­ginia and Penn­syl­va­nia now aver­ages almost 4 bil­lion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), more than five times as much as the aver­age from 2004 through 2008. It accounts for over 85% of total North­east­ern nat­ural gas production.

The chart above high­lights these trends:

  • Pro­duc­tion in North­east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia recently passed 2 Bcf/d, up from just 0.4 Bcf/d at the start of 2010.
  • In South­west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, pro­duc­tion is over 0.8 Bcf/d, more than three times the level at the begin­ning of 2010.
  • In West Vir­ginia, pro­duc­tion has grown over 40% since Jan­u­ary 2010 and recently sur­passed 1 Bcf/d.
  • Pro­duc­tion in the rest of the North­east has been roughly unchanged since 2007.

Update: Kathryn Klaber, pres­i­dent of the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coali­tion, weighs in on the report with this emailed com­ment: “This data – which comes on the heels of new PA DEP data show­ing a 60 per­cent increase in Mar­cel­lus Shale pro­duc­tion over the past year – is fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion that our region will con­tinue to play a sig­nif­i­cant and grow­ing role in meet­ing our nation’s increas­ing energy demands.”

Comments

  • http://twitter.com/economic_status economic_status

    Dear Mr. Pres­i­dent Obama, Gov. Cuomo
    and all peo­ple who should pro­tect your vot­ers and the nation!

    To allow imme­di­ately the extrac­tion of nat­ural gas at all places the DEC has already declared out­side water­sheds is the only way to save the future.
    The econ­omy hits rock bot­tom, the cure is in your hands but you gave the power to a group of envi­ron­men­tal extrem­ists. They want a per­fect reg­u­la­tion but that is impos­si­ble. Not one kind of indus­try is with­out risks, not now and not in future. They are talk­ing about envi­ron­men­tal impacts caused by nat­ural gas drilling. But they can­not exhibit any evi­dence, not one. They are just play­ing for time to find a base­ment for the own unfounded pro­nounce­ments and the­ses. They are talk­ing about methane in aque­ducts. Nobody ask first the per­son who has drilled the water well on the farm whether it has hit any methane shale. Just for exam­ple.
    A lot of stud­ies based on canards. That is a mod­ern ver­sion of the inqui­si­tion.
    They do not see more than the own tun­nel straight ahead.
    They will wait until the eco­nomic dis­as­ter is irre­versible.
    The U.S. econ­omy is down.
    Smaller com­pa­nies will become insol­vent, not just gas drillers.
    A lot more peo­ple will be unem­ployed. Maybe some small town will die.
    Infra­struc­tures will be destroyed and the U.S. econ­omy won’t be bet­ter.
    Alone the cur­rent offi­cial plan to bal­ance the debt won’t be suf­fi­cient, on the con­trary.
    Investors will be dis­cour­aged.
    Every child knows that you can­not expect to get juice from a dry pressed fruit.
    Cer­tainly you can try other meth­ods, from the other side or with more pres­sure, but it won’t work.
    You have to find another fruit to get juice.
    Your fruit is nat­ural gas.
    So just take back the respon­si­bil­ity from the DEC and take action, before it is too late.
    Every day with­out nat­ural gas drilling will be a month to repair the eco­nomic aftermath.

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