Marcellus Shale

(A man and his Marcellus. Shale, that is.)

The Times' business section has just published a piece that scratches the surface of the Marcellus Shale, an alluring natural gas-bearing sedimentary formation spanning south central New York state to West Virginia that is seen by some as the next frontier of domestic energy exploration. The Marcellus Shale was discovered in Fredonia, New York, over a century ago and, overnight, has spurred major interest from a handful of natural gas companies, including Schuepbach Energy.

Innovations in seismic analysis, hydraulic fracturing, and horizontal well drilling are making shale exploration possible because now prodigious reserves can be extracted responsibly from a small, central location throughout a region significantly more vast than Texas' Barnett Shale. The technologies in that venture are being applied to produce natural gas in New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Things move fast, too.

One morning in January, a certain over-caffeinated CNBC personality claimed that 2008 would be "the year of natural gas". If leasing prices rise exponentially, and the shale's as fertile as information suggests, others will no doubt be inclined to agree.

(check out the recently completed refresh of SchuepbachEnergy.com, a project that's been brewing since late January.)