Energy Wonders of The World: The Marcellus Shale

The mountains of Pennsylvania and West Virginia sit atop a resource that has revolutionized global energy: the Marcellus Shale. The natural gas reserves in the region have catapulted the United States into the largest producer of natural gas in the world.

With the Marcellus production large enough that if the Appalachian region (which includes the Marcellus along with smaller connected Utica shales) were its own country, the only two nations that have more natural gas production would be the United States and Russia.

The region's natural production is greater than that of every other country, including Qatar and Iran.

Marcellus: From Traces of Production At Turn Of Century To One Of World's Largest Producers of Natural Gas

The sheer scale of the Marcellus Shale Basin is staggering, resulting in Pennsylvania alone contributing about 20% of the natural gas supply in the U.S.

To grasp this scale: While industrial and commercial users are the primary and secondary end users, the annual production of Marcellus could theoretically meet the natural gas needs of all 75 million gas-using households in the U.S. nearly three times over.

While production of the Marcellus region was minuscule as recently as 2000, it started growing significantly in the early 2010s. It has since surpassed the natural gas production of the Permian Basin in Texas and is producing significantly larger volumes of natural gas than Qatar.