Marcellus natural gas trend

rdf:langString Marcellus natural gas trend

rdf:langString The Marcellus natural gas trend is a large and prolific area of shale gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale or Marcellus Formation of Devonian age in the eastern United States. The shale play encompasses 104,000 square miles and stretches across Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and into eastern Ohio and western New York. In 2012, it was the largest source of natural gas in the United States, and production was still growing rapidly in 2013. The natural gas is trapped in low-permeability shale, and requires the well completion method of hydraulic fracturing to allow the gas to flow to the well bore. The surge in drilling activity in the Marcellus Shale since 2008 has generated both economic benefits and considerable controversy. Although before 2008 the Marcellus Shale was considered to have inconsequential natural gas potential, it is now believed to hold the largest volume of recoverable natural gas in the United States. In 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained 42.954 to 144.145 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas; the USGS upgraded its estimate to 214 TCF in 2019. The speculated total volume of the Marcellus field is even greater; Chesapeake Energy places its estimate at 410 TCF of shale gas. In September 2012, the Marcellus Shale overtook the Haynesville Shale of northwest Louisiana as the leading producer of both shale gas and overall natural gas in the United States. In February 2014, Marcellus gas wells produced 14.0 billion cubic feet per day (BFCD), a 42 percent increase over the year previous, and comprising 21 percent of all the dry gas produced that month in the United States; this increased to 14.4 BCFD and 36% of all shale gas nationwide in 2015. By 2018, production had grown further from an average of 19.4 BCFD and reached more than 21 BCFD in December 2018. This increase in production, from the most productive basin in the U.S., has been a major contributor to the significant decline in price for natural gas but continued investment of production appears to be waning in the face of price weakness