‘Wet’ Gas Worth 75% More, $7 vs. $4 per Thousand Cubic Feet

The ‘wet’ gas from Wetzel, Marshall and Ohio counties in West Virgina and the SW corner of Pennsylvania has a substantial premium over ‘dry’ gas, according to Michael McCown, vice president of Gastar Exploration. He said, “The current price of gas is about $4 per mcf (1,000 cubic feet), but with the ‘wet’ gas, it is worth about $7 per mcf.”  This is because of the presence of ethane, propane, butanes, and possibly some higher hydrocarbons.

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Gastar is set to start this fall drilling up to 30 wells on 3300 acres of PPG land at Natrium near the Ohio River in Marshall county a few miles north of the Mason-Dixon line. The wet gas will be sent to an extraction plant such as the Caiman Energy plant in Marshall County or the planned Dominion Transmission plant near PPG. The ethane can then undergo further processing at Bayer’s proposed “cracker” plant to form plastics. (See the “special task force” post on “crackers” earlier in this series.)

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McCown and others have touted many years of service for these wells, large volumes of gas, and significant job opportunities. He realizes that over the past nine months, local residents have seen natural gas explosions, fires, spills, traffic accidents, unauthorized earthmoving and alleged drinking water contamination as a result of the drilling.

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“Our industry is safe,” McCown insisted. “I take accidents very seriously. We must keep our people and our environment safe. We understand there is a disturbance to the area, but the benefit is of a much greater value,” he added of the drilling.

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