Has Well Productivity Peaked in the Nation’s Largest Shale Gas Play? The Marcellus shale gas play of Pennsylvania and West Virginia came onto the scene in 2007 in a big way and has grown to become the nation’s largest. It has accounted for much of the growth of U.S. shale gas production, and made up for declines in former shale gas giants like the Haynesville and Barnett plays of Louisiana and eastern Texas. Companies have scrambled to build pipeline infrastructure to connect the Marcellus to consumers in the U.S. northeast. Canadians, once supplied by gas from western Canada, are also looking to the Marcellus (and the much smaller Utica play in Ohio) for future supply; the pipelines that delivered gas to the east might be converted to instead deliver bitumen from the western tar sands. Companies in both the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada are looking to build LNG […]