Following a decline in energy prices that began in 2014, many companies found innovative ways to extract more oil and gas while spending fewer dollars. With energy prices rising again, those companies are likely to invest in drilling and undertake other projects that create jobs, according to John Shackelford, a senior examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
“The structural changes that have been achieved by the industry — involving better equipment, high-speed drilling, enhanced fracking, better mapping of fields and new pipelines — will bring greater drilling activity in the Marcellus and Utica fields and are expected to keep costs reduced by 25 percent, according to industry analysts,” Shackelford said.
Shackelford noted in 2016 when energy prices reached their recent low, there were more than 5,000 drilled wells energy companies left uncompleted. He said these wells, a number of which are in the Fourth Federal Reserve District, can be brought online in a matter of weeks. The fourth district includes Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky and the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
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