West Virginia’s Marcellus Shale Production “Remarkable”
Monday January 18, 2016
When discussing the Mighty Marcellus, it’s often Pennsylvania that one thinks of because of the sheer size of the Marcellus Shale across the state and the record breaking natural gas production that has occurred here. But the latest data from the West Virginia Geological & Economic Survey (WVGES) shows that Pennsylvania is not the only Marcellus state with amazing production results. From a recent Wheeling Intelligencer article:
“They are remarkable. They are shocking,” Charlie Burd, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, said of the numbers. “We were at about 260 billion cubic feet in 2008. Now, it just keeps going up because of fracking and horizontal drilling.”
Just how much natural gas are we talking about? Well, just one well in Ohio County produced enough gas in 2014 to supply electricity for over 24,000 homes! In fact, in 2014 the state produced over one trillion cubic feet of natural gas. According to Energy.gov, that’s enough natural gas to,
- heat 15 million homes for one year;
- generate 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity;
- and fuel 12 million natural-gas powered vehicles for one year.
And it’s not just natural gas that is booming. The state also produced 8.3 million barrels of liquids like ethane and propane, along with the natural gas developed. These feedstocks are used for heating, manufacturing and making plastics, and will be a huge boon for the region if an ethane cracker facility is built in the area to treat ethane.
In addition to the natural gas and liquids, Ohio County had one well that produced over 45,000 barrels of light crude oil in 2014, and th...