Marcellus (PA) – update through September 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, from all 8,512 horizontal wells in Pennsylvania that started producing since 2010, through September.

Gas production from horizontal wells came in higher again in September, at 17.4 Bcf/d. Output has grown by about 10% in the 4 preceding months, driven mostly by an increase in well completions; In both August and September, 107 wells started production, the highest since the end of 2014.

This increase in completion activity didn’t have a negative effect so far on well productivity. In the ‘Well quality’ tab you’ll find the production profiles for all these wells, averaged by the year in which they started. Group the wells by the quarter in which they started (using the ‘Show wells by selection’), and you’ll see that the best initial performance came from the wells that started in Q3 this year, at over 13 MMcf/d.

Of the 5 leading operators, Cabot stood out as it increased gas production by 18% in just 2 months (see the final tab).

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 quarter.

Well design has changed significantly over the years; in 2012 about 4 million pounds of proppant was used per completion, on average, while this has recently increased to over 18 million pounds. The plot clearly shows how this has had a positive impact on well productivity.

Early next week I will have a new update on the Niobrara.

If you missed our live chat last Tuesday with John Sodergreen and Het Shah, about the Permian Basin, you can still read back our discussion here in the enelyst ShaleProfile Briefings channel. Next week Tuesday, at 10:30 am (EST), we’ll take a closer look at gas production in Pennsylvania, and there is enough time to ask questions.

If you are not an enelyst member yet, you can sign up for free at www.enelyst.com, using the code: “Shale18”

Happy Thanksgiving!

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.