A Closer Look At The Marcellus And Utica Shales

While you are reading this month's issue, our team will be in Pittsburgh at DUG East, learning more about the booming Marcellus and Utica Shales. The Marcellus alone now produces more than 14.5 Bcf/d and is still growing, even though the play’s rig count is down by almost half since peaking in 2012. This is according to the Energy Information Administration’s new Drilling Productivity Report.

It’s a big reason why April 2014 was “the most prolific natural gas producing month in U.S. history,” according to the latest estimates from Bentek Energy, the analytics and forecasting firm now owned by Platts. Gas output for the Lower 48 that month averaged 67.3 Bcf/d—up by 2.7 Bcf/d, or 4.2%, from April 2013 levels.

On first-quarter conference calls taking place at press time, producer after producer reported production growth in this, North America’s largest gas play. Cabot Oil & Gas is now being called the swing producer that can affect whether the Northeast is oversupplied versus pipeline takeaway capacity, leading to depressed gas prices at the wellhead. Cabot’s first-quarter daily production was 1.2 Bcf net from its northeast Pennsylvania acreage—up 44% year-over-year. It expects to be producing 2 Bs a day gross sometime next year.

What’s more, shortly after the end of the quarter, Cabot reached quite a milestone: 1 Tcf of cumulative production from its Marcellus holdings in less than six years. “This is a tremendous accomplishment, especially considering the company’s maximum rig count in the Marcellus during this period was six rigs, with no more than 290 horizontal wells producing, highlighting the productivity of this asset,” said CEO Dan Dinges.

Newly public Antero Resources said its Marcellus production grew 13% and its Utica output rose 46% in the quarter to a combined 786 MMcf/d. Chesapeake Energy’s daily Pennsylvania gas production rose 28% to average 910 MMcfe and its Utica output went up a whopping 422% to 50,000 BOE a day (60% gas, 30% NGL).

Gulfport Energy, a Utica shale leader, looks to grow production some 250% year-over-year in 2014. But it was interesting to note that its technical approach will change. On the conference call, recently promoted CEO Michael Moore and COO Ross Kirtley said the company will slow its drilling and completion pace. Why? To proceed more carefully, adopt best practices, let the midstream catch up, and prepare for the long term instead of pursuing the lightning-fast growth track it has been on in the past two years. No more pulling the wells so fast that that might damage the reservoir in the long term. Analysts said this change was probably positive and company-specific, not an implied damning of the Utica rock itself.

One big benefit of this natural gas boom is the growth in industrial demand for this relatively cheap gas. Chevron Phillips, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell each are adding to their chemical manufacturing capacity along the Texas Gulf Coast. ArcelorMittel restarted its steel mill in Cleveland. Germany’s BASF said it may build a $1.4 billion gas-to-propylene plant in the U.S. Fertilizer plants in Iowa, North Dakota and Arkansas are reopening, expanding or planned.

U.S. gas storage is more than 900 Bcf or 48.2% below the five-year average thanks to the harsh winter of 2013-2014, so there’s plenty of demand to fill there as well.

Barclays is a bull on natural gas demand from the industrial sector, noting that it already accelerated in 2013 at a greater clip than the research team had anticipated.

“Industrial consumption grew by 713 MMcf/d year-over-year in 2013, compared with an initial projection for 500 MMcf/d growth. So far, this dynamic has been largely the result of restarting previously mothballed facilities and expanding capacity at existing operational ones,” analyst Biliana Pehlivanova said in a recent research report.

She also tracks upcoming newbuild industrial facilities and the estimated amount of additional gas demand they could create. “For the 2015-2017 period, our updated project list suggests that natural gas use may rise by almost 3.2 Bcf/d once all projects targeting startup in that timeframe are fully ramped up. Specifically, natural gas use from projects targeting startup in 2015 adds up to about 0.7 Bcf/d. If projects come online as planned, industrial demand could rise by a further 1.1 Bcf/d in 2016, and 1.4 Bcf/d in 2017.”

She cautions, however, that many of these projects could be delayed and some others canceled, so the time lines for increased demand are uncertain.

What about the amount of gas needed for projected LNG exports?

As of March 24, 2014, the DOE had 24 applications pending to export LNG, equivalent to an additional 26.59 Bcf/d of gas to non-free trade agreement countries, according to testimony before the House.

And as of that same date, DOE had granted one final and six conditional long-term authorizations to export Lower 48 LNG to non-free trade agreement countries, in a total amount equivalent to 9.27 Bcf/d from one LNG plant under construction, and five proposed facilities.