Shale Crescent USA updates Economic Roundtable on past year's progress

It has spent the past year promoting the shale drilling region to the rest of the world.

Wednesday, Shale Crescent USA briefed business leaders in its own back yard on its efforts.

Two of its founders just returned from a petrochemical conference in Texas; a conference attended by several companies doing business overseas.

"When this decade started, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania produced about three per cent of all the natural gas in the United States,' said Jerry James, a member of Shale Crescent's board of trustees. "At the end of last year, we produced 30%. So the lull was created because we developed the supply faster than the demand. But it creates a huge opportunity for companies who want to come in here and build, because we have the lowest natural gas prices in the developed world."

Still, Shale Crescent says the two states in our region, combined with Pennsylvania, make up the world's third-largest producer of natural gas.

James and Shale Crescent representative Wally Kandel, Site Manager of Solvay Marietta, say overall energy production in this decade is at its highest level since the 1970'S.