Marcellus Shale Gas Production Numbers Surge

• Marie Cusick
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Marie Cusick was the Harrisburg reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale produced over 1.4 trillion cubic feet of gas during the first half of 2013, according to new data released by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The numbers show a 57 percent increase in gas production compared to the same time period from last year. The DEP releases the data twice a year.
Chesapeake Energy remains the most active company, with the highest number of unconventional wells (792) and the most gas produced.
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s operations in Susquehanna County represent the most productive wells  — with seven of the top ten in the state.
“The amount of clean-burning natural gas being safely produced in the Commonwealth is nothing short of staggering,” said Marcellus Shale Coalition President Kathryn Klaber in a statement.
The information is not immune from human error. According to the data, Pennsylvania’s most productive well was operated by Southwestern Energy. It turned out to be a mistake.
The well erroneously showed an average daily production level nearly three times higher than Cabot’s top well. Southwestern notified the DEP about the error today, after an inquiry by StateImpact Pennsylvania.
DEP spokeswoman Amanda Witman says agency staff review the information after it’s published.
“Our goal is get the data out as soon as possible,” she says, “There typically aren’t many significant errors.”
StateImpact Pennsylvania is in the process of updating our Shale Play Map App with the new data.
Gas production by county:
[spreadsheet key=”0AuY1xHD_PDzBdFRLZm1YZHVTUURLVk5hWWJadG5yR1E&output” source=”PA Department of Environmental Protection” filter=0 paginate=1 sortable=1]
(Mcf = thousand cubic feet)

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