Consol Energy Scales Back Its Drilling Plans

Yet another drilling com­pany is scal­ing back its drilling out­put, due to low nat­ural gas prices.

Ear­lier this week, Chesa­peake trimmed its dry gas oper­a­tions by a third. This time, it’s Consol.

More from the Post-Gazette:

Lucra­tive joint ven­tures in its gas divi­sion and strong over­seas sales in its coal divi­sion helped Con­sol Energy post record fourth-quarter prof­its, but low nat­ural gas prices have forced the Cecil-based energy firm to scale back 2012 drilling plans, the com­pany announced today.

Con­sol Energy announced a profit of $196 mil­lion, or 85 cents per diluted share, for the quar­ter ended Decem­ber 31, up from the $104 mil­lion and 46 cents seen this time one year ago. Rev­enue for the quar­ter was nearly $1.4 billion.