U.S. natural-gas production slowing – except in Ohio

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The country’s natural-gas industry is still in the dumps, but Ohio isn’t doing too badly.

“One U.S. state is bucking the trend,” Bloomberg Markets notes– and it’s us.

Eastern Ohio is home to the Utica shale play, where oil and gas drillers have extracted plenty of natural gas in recent years by using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

While the exploration business as a whole is far from its early-decade heights, Ohio production increased 13 percent in August, counter to most other states, including neighboring Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is home to the Marcellus shale play, but drillers “are doubling down on Ohio amid speculation that gas flows from the Utica will eventually rival output from the Marcellus, America’s biggest shale reservoir,” the story notes.

Ohio’s gas production now makes up 5 percent of the country’s supply, up from less than 2 percent two years ago, according to federal data.

Almost two dozen companies are drilling in Ohio; you can see each producers’ top well here.

Tom Knox covers Ohio State University, public policy, energy and manufacturing.