Marcellus (PA) – update through May 2018

This is an older blog post, you will find one on more recent data here

This interactive presentation contains the latest gas (and a little oil) production data through May, from all 8,137 horizontal wells in Pennsylvania that started producing since 2010.

After the significant jump in output at the end of last year, gas production has remained fairly steady at a level around 16 Bcf/d, and just like in the past 3 years there was a small dip in May.

Only 252 horizontal wells started production in Pennsylvania in the first 5 months of this year, which was the lowest number since 2010.

The initial performance of these new wells is similar to the ones that started in 2017, which were the best to date (see the bottom graph in the ‘Well quality’ tab).

Cabot has taken over the lead from Chesapeake as the largest gas operator in this area, as you’ll see in the ‘Top operators’ tab. The top 5 operators shown there operate more than half of total unconventional gas production in this state.

The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below:

This “Ultimate Return” overview shows the relationship between gas production rates, and cumulative gas production, averaged for all horizontal wells that started producing in a certain year.

The ~600 wells that started in 2010 have now recovered on average 3.3 Bcf, and are now at a flow rate of 600 Mcf/d. By extrapolating the 2014 curve, you’ll see that these wells are likely to recover about double this number by the time they’ve declined to this flow rate.

In the 6th tab (‘Productivity map’), you’ll find which areas in Pennsylvania are the most productive, as measured by the average cumulative gas production in the first 2 years.

Last week we launched the ShaleProfile Analytics portal at the URTeC, in which the performance of more than 100 thousand horizontal wells in the US can be analyzed in even more detail than here on the blog. This portal also allows you to see the detailed location of all these wells, and analyze how changing lateral lengths and proppant loadings has affected well performance, among many other capabilities. We’ll have soon more information about this on our webpage. If you’re interested you can already find some brief information, and the possibility to request a trial license, in this link.

Next week I plan to have new updates on the Permian and the Eagle Ford.

Production data is subject to revisions. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources:

• Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
• FracFocus.org

====BRIEF MANUAL====

The above presentations have many interactive features:

• You can click through the blocks on the top to see the slides.
• Each slide has filters that can be set, e.g. to select individual or groups of operators. You can first click “all” to deselect all items.
• You have to click the “apply” button at the bottom to enforce the changes. After that, click anywhere on the presentation.
• Tooltips are shown by just hovering the mouse over parts of the presentation.
• You can move the map around, and zoom in/out.
• By clicking on the legend you can highlight selected items.
• Note that filters have to be set for each tab separately.
• The operator who currently owns the well is designated by “operator (current)”. The operator who operated a well in a past month is designated by “operator (actual)”. This distinction is useful when the ownership of a well changed over time.
• If you have any questions on how to use the interactivity, or how to analyze specific questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Enno Peters

Enno Peters is General Manager at Novi, where he has build an AI-driven data & analytics platform tailored for oil & gas operators and energy investors. Prior to Novi, Enno founded ShaleProfile which was acquired by Novi late 2021.