ERIE 2014 Drilling for natural gas
Northwestern Pa.’s 153 permits were just 5.2% of state’s 2,966 permits issued for new wells in the shale.
There were 153 permits issued for new wells in the Marcellus Shale in 2013 in northwestern Pennsylvania. Where they occurred by county:
Erie
0
1
0
Forest
Elk
4
Venango
Clarion
1
Lawrence
Marcellus Shale formation occurs in subsurface or outcrop
9
1
17
12
13
Jefferson
3
Butler
92
SOURCE: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
VALERIE MYERS and CHRIS SIGMUND/Erie Times-News
Few Marcellus wells were drilled here, but the industry is pumping in business By VALERIE MYERS valerie.myers@timesnews.com
Not many drillers are tapping into the Marcellus Shale in northwestern Pennsylvania, where the geologic formation isn’t particularly rich in natural gas and oil. But some northwestern Pennsylvania businesses are tapping into Marcellus profits, adding jobs and pumping dollars into the region’s economy. Meadville-based Universal Well Services Inc. has been doing business in the Marcellus for a decade. It fracked the first Marcellus well, in southwestern Pennsylvania, in October
2004 and has since grown from 200 to more than 1,000 employees. “We were in on the ground floor of the Marcellus, saw that our customer seemed pretty excited about it, and read between the lines,” company PresidentRoger Willis said.“We basically rolled the dice, acquired some equipment and technology, and grew with the industry.” The company cements and pressure-pumps wells in addition to hydrofracking. It has grown from a basically mechanical business, Willis said, to include large information technology, service, training and laboratory facilities at the Crawford Business Park in Vernon Township and in a new free-standing building nearby. The company also has facilities in Bradford, Williamsport, Punxsutawney, suburban Pittsburgh,
and in West Virginia and Kentucky. The company today does business almost exclusively on the Marcellus, for world-class companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil subsidiary XTO. The state and region are sharing its good fortune. In 2009, Universal Well Services spent almost $48 million in Pennsylvania, for trucks, tires, electronics, welding supplies, safety equipment and other needs, Willis said. Much of that was spent locally. “We prefer to use local vendors, from the people building our buildings to Hagan Business Machines for the copiers we buy, to the Holiday Inn Express, where we have a training facility,” Willis said. Universal Well Services is the poster company for
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