Lord Stanley, No.........Lord Marcellus, Yes

The last time a Canadian hockey team won the cup (Canadiens '92-'93) was the year that Talisman Energy was formed. While US hockey teams have been sliding into the back door and snatching ole Lord Stanley for those fifteen years, the $US 24 billion Canadian gas producer has been sliding into the US and snatching up a very nice chunk of the Marcellus shale.

While doing some background work for the recent Talisman Energy/Hallwood announcement, I found that the company holds a substantial 640,000 acres in the Marcellus play. This makes them the #3 player behind Chesapeake and Range in terms of acreage.

According to Talisman's June presentation, the position is mainly on the NY-PA border with some acreage in southwestern PA very near Range Resources' highly successful horizontal completions. Furthermore, Talisman's Fortuna Energy unit (FEI) is heralded as the #1 producer of natural gas in the state of New York.

The Pennsylvania DEP website shows that Talisman's Fortuna Energy (FEI) unit has only 17 active well sites in Pennsylvania's Marcellus fairway. With 20 vertical test wells drilled since '06 and plans to drill 4 more as well as 20 horizontals by the end of next year, it won't be long that you'll see TLM on the list to the right: The Players..........