Chevron increasing spending in Marcellus Shale

Chevron announced on Jan. 21 its plan to spend nearly $40 billion on drilling and fracking this year, according to a press release from the California-based global oil giant.Much of that budget is planned for the Marcellus Shale play in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle.“Overall, we have an attractive portfolio of investment opportunities which we will continue to fund in a disciplined fashion to grow value and shareholder distributions,” Chairman and CEO John Watson says.Chevron, one of the largest publically owned oil companies in the world, earned $5 billion from June through September 2013.The company says about 90 percent of the