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“What’s happening is that we [drillers in the Marcellus shale] continue to get better and get more [natural gas] production per rig. We’re the problem. Not only are we drilling longer wells, not only are we drilling them more cheaply, but we’re getting more recovery. Today, we’re drilling the best wells we’ve ever drilled. Some of it is advances in technology. Some of it is advances in our ability, and some of it is geology — we’re in areas where we have the ability to drill longer laterals. So you can see the problem. As gas prices come off… we continue to do better and better at drilling wells. Even with this ugly pricing, we can get on [our] best wells about a 20 percent rate of return. So…the problem is that there is still development going on even in an ugly pricing environment.”
Kyle Mork, president of Energy Corporation of America