Pennsylvania natural gas industry ends 2020 with fewer rigs drilling in Marcellus

Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry ends the year with a rig count not only around the lowest of 2020 but also well below where it started the year before the Covid-19 pandemic, oil price wars and overall economic turmoil turned everything upside down.

There were an average of 18 rigs working in Pennsylvania in the middle of December, according to data from energy analysis firm Baker Hughes. That’s down from 25 at the same time last year before the pandemic and recession but smack dab in the middle of a glut in the natural gas industry that led to more production than the market needed and sustained low prices in the bargain.

Pennsylvania is the country’s second-largest state for natural gas production, behind only Texas, as well as being the center of the Marcellus and Utica Shale boom of the past decade and a half. But production has been taking a hit over the past year as natural gas companies like EQT Corp. (NYSE: EQT) and CNX Resources Corp. (NYSE: CNX), among others, shut off the spigot at some of its gas wells temporarily as prices lagged. The strategy allows the drillers to produce less natural gas when the prices are low — and they were down to near historic lows in 2020 — and then turn it back on when they can get more in a higher price environment.

Read more from our partners at The Pittsburgh Business Times.

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