
It looks like we may be almost at a peak--the day we knew would come (but secretly hoped never would) where not only the Marcellus/Utica, but all of the major shale plays in the country stop producing more natural gas each month than they did the month before. Yesterday the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration, our favorite government agency) issued its monthly Drilling Productivity Report. It shows the M-U will end up producing 33,674 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas in November, and their forecast is the M-U will produce 33,720 MMcf/d in December, a gain of 46 MMcf/d (one-tenth of one percent). In other words, statistically we're at a standstill (not growing) and in the near future we expect to see *less* monthly production. We're just about cresting the top the hill.
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