Pennsylvania shale production continues to beat expectations.  This week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) released its most current data for unconventional wells, which shows that producers achieved a “dramatic increase” in production.

The data show that for the first six months of 2014, Pennsylvania operators produced an amazing 1.9 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of natural gas, 1.8 million (MM) barrels of condensate and a little over 200,000 barrels of oil. That’s a fourteen percent increase over the last six months of 2013.

Even more impressive is that this huge increase in production came from fewer wells than have previously been used before.  As the Trib Live reported:

“Energy companies accomplished the record despite connecting fewer than 500 new wells during the period. Previous semiannual reports showed an average of 675 new wells every six months.”

According to David Spigelmyer, President of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, by the year-end, total gas will surpass 4 TCF, thanks to this increased efficiency.

This is very much in line with the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) recent finding that the “productivity of oil and natural gas wells is steadily increasing in many basins across the United States because of the increasing precision and efficiency of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in oil and natural gas extraction.”

Pennsylvania producers are clearly becoming much more productive and efficient, creating a smaller surface impact on the land.  That means Pennsylvanians can expect production to continue for years to come, providing families with thousands of jobs, lower energy prices, and cleaner air.