Full Speed Ahead in the Marcellus for Chevron & Exxon Mobil
Not every driller is pulling back from drilling natural gas to focus on oil and gas liquids. In fact, for two of the largest energy companies in the U.S., it’s full speed ahead with drilling in the Marcellus. Those two companies? Chevron and Exxon Mobil. Chevron is planning to double its drilling in the Marcellus in the near term.
From a recent story in the Wall Street Journal:
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A rather generic story put out by Reuters yesterday refers to Exxon Mobil’s interest in acquiring acreage in the Utica Shale in Ohio as a new source of oil drilling. Details are sparse about Exxon’s plans, but it points out the white-hot interest there is in Ohio’s Utica Shale since Chesapeake announced in July they have struck oil, as well as natural gas and gas liquids, in Eastern Ohio (
A number of landowners from Belmont County, Ohio made the trip to Wheeling, WV last week to sign leases to allow drilling in the Utica Shale on their property. The leases were signed with XTO Energy, now a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil. The price landowners got for Utica leases rivals the highest prices MDN has heard of for any Marcellus Shale lease, in no small part because of Chesapeake Energy’s recent discovery of natural gas liquids and even oil in the Utica Shale in Ohio.
ProPublica recently compiled a list of the top 10 natural gas drillers in the U.S. based on daily natural gas production volume. The list includes gas drilled by both “traditional” vertical drilling as well as “non-traditional” horizontal hydraulic fracturing. Or think of it as non-shale gas and shale gas—companies who drill for both are in the list. The Marcellus Shale represents a good portion of the gas now being produced in the country, but other shale formations, like the more mature Barnett Shale (in Texas) also contribute a substantial volume of natural gas.