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I am writing in response to the Marietta Times "Our Opinion" column printed on Monday, August 28th and titled "The gas boom fizzled. Look now to the future". Rarely does one read such a blatantly biased and misleading editorial, and I felt a reply was warranted. Dr. Chase, former head of the Petroleum Engineering department at Marietta College, has previously written a nice letter in response, but I would like to add just a few more numbers to fully highlight to the public how disingenuous this column was. Dr. Chase was quite tactful. I am annoyed enough by the deception to not really care about tact.
The Times editorial staff wrote this column to present the concept of the local gas boom "fizzling". Here are some data points sourced from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the federal agency tasked with gathering domestic oil and gas production information. The original editorial column referenced the year 2008 as the baseline, so I will also use that year as the starting point. Now for the numbers;
Ohio Gas production in 2008 was 84.858 BCF
Ohio Gas production in 2021 was 2,234.618 BCF (26.33 times the 2008 volume)
Pennsylvania Gas production in 2008 was 197.287 BCF
Pennsylvania Gas production in 2021 was 7,526.590 BCF (38.15 times the 2008 volume)
West Virginia Gas production in 2008 was 236.489 BCF
West Virginia Gas production in 2021 was 2,537.691 BCF (10.73 times the 2008 volume)
As you can see by these numbers, that is quite the "fizzle". I wish I knew how to make my investments "fizzle" in the same manner.
In closing, all readers should be aware of the biases inherent in almost everything published these days. Readers would be well served to independently verify any information presented if they feel it is an important topic.
John R Nicholas
Marietta