Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for October through December 2023 (full copy below). There were 110 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 4Q23, a decrease of 26 wells (-19%) compared to 4Q22. However, 4Q’s spud number was up from the 102 drilled in 3Q23. Natural gas production volume was 1,939 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 4Q23, up 82 Bcf (4.4%) from 1,857 Bcf produced in 4Q22. There were two pieces of big news in this report: (1) Production for all of 2023 actually went up (now down) by 1%; (2) The total number of new wells drilled in 2023 was the lowest it has been in a decade.
