The Race to 30,000 Feet: M-U Drillers Keep Breaking Lateral Records

Here's a fact worth bragging about at the next family dinner: the longest onshore horizontal shale wells ever drilled in the U.S. are all right here in the Marcellus/Utica, and the line between "record" and "routine" keeps moving. Five-mile laterals, unheard of a few years ago, are now showing up in quarterly earnings reports like any other line item. And they matter. A new UBS research report says longer laterals and faster drilling are a big reason U.S. drillers can keep growing production without adding many more rigs. So who holds the belt, who wants it, and what does it mean for landowners, service companies and pipelines? We put together a scorecard.

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