USGS Study: Marcellus Drilling Fragmenting Forests in PA
The U.S. Geological Survey earlier this week released a new report raising concerns about Marcellus Shale drilling in the Allegheny Plateau (pretty much the entire Marcellus region). The 38-page report (full copy embedded below) looks at two counties in particular: Susquehanna County in northeastern PA, and Allegheny County in southwestern PA.
Using a series of maps and data, the authors raise concerns that Marcellus drilling, along with drilling for gas in coalbed methane (a similar process), is leading to “forest fragmentation”—a situation where forested areas get “carved up” with roadways and drill pads that lead to limiting the geographic habitat area for some species of animals:
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When was the last time you heard about a country bank that had so much money, it was having problems finding enough people and businesses to lend it to? Yeah, we’ve never heard of that either.
Last week energy analyst Richard Zeits posted a terrific piece on Cabot Oil & Gas on the Seeking Alpha website (see 
Another post from energy analyst Richard Zeits on the Seeking Alpha website—this time about the tremendous amount of natural gas Cabot Oil & Gas is mining in Susquehanna County, PA. Zeits says the gas Cabot is finding and selling “may be material to the U.S. supply.” You read that right. One “little” oil and gas driller’s efforts in rural Susquehanna County, PA may well end up influencing the entire U.S. energy picture.
The 2012 reports continue to roll in. Cabot Oil & Gas has just reported its 2012 report and the results are extraordinary. Cabot joined two different “1 billion” clubs in 2012. First, they surpassed $1 billion in revenues for 2012, earning $1.2 billion. Second, they became the first (and so far only) company to achieve 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas production per day in the Marcellus Shale (see 
Cabot Oil & Gas announced yesterday that they’ve reached an important production milestone: They now produce more than one billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus Shale. All of Cabot’s Marcellus drilling happens in Susquehanna County, PA, so put another way, Susquehanna County is now producing more than a billion cubic feet of natural gas each and every day—and Cabot is not the only active driller in Susquehanna County! The company credits, in part, the rapid build out of pipeline infrastructure by Williams for the huge increase in production.
This is an astonishing turnaround. Denise Dennis, a very vocal critic of gas drilling and someone who caught national attention two years ago by denouncing natural gas drilling and comparing it to the tobacco industry at a Philadelphia City Council meeting, has just signed a lease with Cabot Oil & Gas to allow drilling under her historic property in Susquehanna County, PA.