Houston (Platts)--31Oct2012/620 pm EDT/2220 GMT

Natural gas production in the Northeast is continuing at a high pace despite the devastating effects Hurricane Sandy had on homes and businesses in much of the region.

On Wednesday, some Marcellus Shale-area producers were saying there was very little impact to their operations, and data from Bentek Energy, a unit of Platts, showed minimal drop-off to total Northeast gas production flow.

Northeast production flow was pegged at about 8.81 Bcf for Wednesday, down slightly from 8.83 Bcf on Tuesday. Monday's flow total was higher, at 9.06 Bcf, but flows were lower over the weekend and late last week, when the October 26 flow was at 8.84 Bcf.

"Cabot was fortunate," said George Stark, spokesman for Cabot Oil & Gas. "Our operations, including production, were not adversely impacted by the storm."

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Chesapeake Appalachia also saw little effect to its gas production operations in the Northeast, saying "there has been minimal impact to drilling, completion and production operations in the Marcellus region."

Talisman Energy took preparatory efforts ahead of the storm, said Berta Gomez, media relations adviser with the company. Its drill rig in Pennsylvania was racked over the weekend, in the process of moving to another well location, and was left down until the storm passed. The rig was put up Tuesday, Gomez said, and the company returned to normal operations in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

Christina Ramirez, a spokeswoman for Anadarko Petroleum, said the company does not break out volumes shut in due to weather events because the company provides a risked operational profile that reflects possible weather-related downtime in its sales-volume guidance.

"We are now returning the select operated production that we shut in on Monday to pre-storm levels," Ramirez said Wednesday.

Although Sandy is one of the worst natural disasters to hit the Northeast in decades, it appears it will have little impact on total Marcellus production for the year. The year-to-date average gas flow for 2011 was about 5.17 Bcf/d, according to Bentek, and year-to-date for 2012 is at 8.51 Bcf/d, with the current 30-day average coming in at 8.73 Bcf/d.

--Elizabeth Bassett, elizabeth_bassett@platts.com

--Edited by Jason Lindquist, jason_lindquist@platts.com

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