In March 2010, CONSOL Energy paid Dominion Resources $3.5 billion for 500,000 acres of Marcellus Shale gas leases, instantly tripling their lease holdings. CONSOL has continued to invest in Marcellus acreage and now has 750,000 acres under lease.  A map of the Marcellus holdings of CONSOL is shown in the article.

 Now, Noble Energy of Houston, TX, will buy a 50 percent interest in 663,350 net undeveloped acres and fund drilling and completion costs in a deal worth $3.4 billion over an eight-year period. This joint venture will concentrate on Indiana, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties in Pennsylvania as well as Barbour and Marshall counties in West Virginia. CONSOL plans to increase the number of drilling rigs its operating in the Marcellus region from four to eight this year, with further plans to increase that number to 12 rigs by 2013 and 16 rigs by 2015.

CONSOL will operate in the dry gas areas of the acreage, while Noble will operate the wet gas acreage. Wet gas contains ethane, propane and butane, in addition to the methane natural gas. Noble is expected to operate a portion of the dry gas area after the wet gas area has been fully developed.

Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale drilling industry is posting huge gains in production. The state’s 1,632 working Marcellus wells produced 432.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas through the first six months of the year, a 60 percent increase over the amount of gas reported for the last six months of 2010, according to the PA Department of Environmental Protection.  Bradford, Susquehanna and Tioga counties in northern Pennsylvania led with 260 billion cubic feet, The Times-Tribune of Scranton reported. A well drilled by EQT Production Co. in Greene County produced the most gas in the reporting period, 3 billion cubic feet.