Marcellus Shale natural gas production is expected to keep rising in 2012, yet landowners may find that signing lease deals isn’t as easy as in years past.

Though still in its early stages, industry experts say that the business of Marcellus Shale gas drilling is starting to change, as new forces emerge. Read more »

In its rapid ascent to become a top leaseholder in the Marcellus Shale, Chesapeake Energy came to West Virginia and put into play a strategy designed to narrow landowner rights and expand company control over all phases of the drilling cycle.

The Oklahoma City-based energy giant absorbed the region -- which sits above the natural gas rock formation -- in just a few months, driving down landowners' bargaining power, and in some cases preventing leases from expiring, locking landowners into those contracts indefinitely. Read more »

Valley job experts say the new pipe finishing plant at the former Sheet and Tube building in Youngstown is only one example of ancillary industrial business that a Marcellus Shale boom will bring.

The new plant, announced Monday December 5, 2011, is being opened by V&M Star sister company VAM USA, a Houston-based Vallourec subsidiary that manufactures casing and tubing connections for the American oil and gas industry. VAM has three other such plants located in oil country cities like Houston, Houma, La., and Oklahoma City. Read more »

It's like the stories you've read about the California gold rush, but this rush is to West Virginia's northern panhandle and the lure is natural gas.

There are traffic jams in this Wetzel County town, even at mid-day. Almost anything that fits on a trailer can be seen moving up and down Route 2. To ease the congestion, the industry voluntarily suspends truck movement on secondary roads during the hours school buses operate. Read more »