US company Noble Drilling has decided to cut back on its drilling in the Marcellus Shale play in the Appalachian Basin after announcing a second quarter 2015 net loss of $109 million and record production.

Noble backs out of shale formation

HOUSTON, August 4, 2015 – US company Noble Drilling has decided to cut back on its drilling in the Marcellus Shale play in the Appalachian Basin after announcing a second quarter 2015 net loss of $109 million despite record production.

Alongside its partner US energy producer Consol, the independent oil and gas company is putting a temporary hold on drilling in the Marcellus Shale play until natural gas prices rise again. Drilling will not come to a halt immediately as Nobel will wait until the middle of the third quarter to cease operations on its rig with Consol stopping its two rigs in the fourth quarter.

“With some of the completion inventory and some of the completion activity, we’ll still be ramping up [production] in the second half of this year,” chief executive of Noble Energy David Stover said.

Noble recorded in its second-quarter results that it produced about 12.4 mcm (437 mcf) of natural gas per day, which is 70 percent more than its output during the same period in 2014.

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