The apparent industry trend toward multi-well pads could reduce the total footprint of drilling further,but actual trends in Pennsylvania show mixed results. Since 2006, the number of Marcellus wells drilled on their own pads has decreased from
100% to 17%. The current average number of wells per pad is 2.11. There is, however, little indication that many new wells are subsequently drilled on well pads that already have wells on them; only 13% of pads had been revisited for additional wells as of August 2010.This may change later, as development is still in the early stages in Pennsylvania