While much of the United States suffers from the economic downturn there is a boom going on in small towns across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and other northeastern states. This boom is creating new jobs and putting some serious cash into the hands of landowners who sign leases allowing oil and gas companies to drill on their property. In one stroke of the pen a group of several hundred Pennsylvania landowners were each given checks for almost $6000 per acre for initial lease payments. Many checks totaled over $100,000.
This does not include any royalties from gas that is produced from underneath their farms, which could be into the hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Even owners of very small tracts of land or lots on which a home site are getting lease payment and royalty checks. All of this money is changing the face of rural Pennsylvania and other states.
This kind of change does not come without a price. For an area not accustomed to oil and gas drilling many are concerned about the effects on groundwater and air quality. However, as has been demonstrated in the Dallas – Fort worth area in a similar shale, the Barnett shale, drilling can be done in a manner that these impacts are mitigated. Companies such as Chesapeake Resources go to great lengths to put up sound barriers when needed and prevent silt and runoff from reaching creeks and ponds and put privacy fences around wells in urban areas. This is not to say the process is perfect.
There have been instances where mistakes have happened. However, once the act of drilling a Marcellus shale gas well has been completed and the well stimulated with hydraulic fracturing there is little more impact on the environment. Compared to coal mining, which has left lasting environmental damage across rural Pennsylvania and West Virginia, natural gas wells become little more than iron sentinels, remaining there silently producing natural gas for up to twenty years or more from the same well.
How Much Gas Are Marcellus Shale Wells Producing?
Chesapeake Resources recently reported that their wells had increased in yearly average production from 3.75 to 4.2 bcfe or billion cubic feet equivalent per year. Chesapeake reports the following recently completed wells monthly production rates: The Vargson-1H, in Bradford County, Pa., 4.6 MMcfe/d, The Evanchick-2H in Bradford County, 5.3 MMcfe/d, and The Messenger-3H, in Wetzel County, WV, with 3.4 MMcfe/d.
What does 4.6 MMcfe/d mean? This means that a Marcellus shale well is producing 4.6 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas per day. Equivalent is used to describe the equivalent amount of energy generated by the burning natural gas and condensate vs. crude oil, with every 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas being equivalent to one barrel of oil. Numbers like 5.3 are considered very good indeed for a producing gas well. This is comparable to wells in the Barnett Shale.
This kind of money is a game changer for both oil companies and residents of these areas. Better roads, schools, hospitals and lower taxes, plus more jobs will benefit those who are not lucky to own land with mineral rights in the Marcellus shale area.
What Marcellus Shale Gas Well Production Means For The U.S.
The Marcellus shale is the largest natural gas discovery yet found in the US, containing over 5,000 trillion cubic feet of gas. According to scientists there is over a two hundred year supply of natural gas in the United States, thanks in part to the Marcellus shale. All of this gas can be used to generate electricity, heat homes, and even be converted to motor fuel through a process called GTL, or gas to liquids. Gasoline and diesel made from natural gas is very low in particulate matter and other pollutants. This may enable the U.S. to become energy independent, as long as other sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear and biofuels are developed alongside natural gas.
For more information on the Marcellus shale visit Marcellusshaleformation.com