The U.S. Energy Department released its Natural Gas Annual report recently, which showed that U.S. natural gas production hit an all-time high in 2011 at 28.5 trillion cubic feet. This was primarily thanks to the output from shale deposits. In addition, gross gas output rose 6.2 percent in 2011. The production from shale rose 46 percent, making it 30 percent of the total output in 2011, which is the biggest increase since shale production started being reported in 2007. The large increase in production from shale is attributed to the new drilling technology of hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as fracking.
Read the full article here: Shale-Gas Output Led Production to Record in 2011, U.S. Says