The Marcellus shale formation is estimated to hold roughly 500 trillion recoverable cubic feet of natural gas. And industry leaders expect you might be surprised at just how far that amount of natural gas can go.

For some perspective, consider that the United States now consumes about 63 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That means the Marcellus find alone could equate to a 20-plus year supply of U.S. natural gas consumption. Read more »

A recent study shows that the Marcellus Shale created 38,000 jobs last year, but a little restaurant in Washington County shows that the economic impact is a whole lot deeper than that.

Two years ago, the Cherry Hill Grille was struggling to keep the lights on and employees had to cut back their hours.

These days, the restaurant is doing great, catering to shale gas workers who eat out all the time. Read more »

Shell Oil Co. said today Monday June 6, 2011 it plans to build an ethylene "cracker" plant somewhere in the Appalachian region, to process natural gas from the Marcellus shale region into a substance that is used to make petrochemicals.

The cracker would turn ethane from the natural gas into ethylene. The Houston-based company said it's evaluating options for ethylene derivatives to make at the plant, and the leading one is Polyethylene, or PE" used in packaging, adhesives, automotive components and other products. Read more »

Nearly 48,000 people have been hired in the last year by industries related to drilling in the Marcellus Shale, and 71 percent of those people were Pennsylvania residents. Nine thousand of them were hired in the first three months of 2011.

The average salary was higher than the statewide average.

And the rate of hiring is accelerating.

While there has been much talk of the economic impact of the Marcellus, most of it has been anecdotal, until the Department of Labor and Industry quietly published its most up-to-date hard numbers about two weeks ago. Read more »