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Youngstown
Business Journal
2012
Utica Results Show ‘Onset of
New Boom'
By Andrea Wood
Friday, May 17, 2013
YOUNGSTOWN,
Ohio – Oil production
in the state’s Utica Shale/Point Pleasant formation increased 93% in
2012
compared to 2011, and natural gas production rose by 80%, the Ohio
Department
of Natural Resources reported Thursday afternoon. While the increases
are huge,
just 87 horizontal wells were in production in 2012, officials
emphasized, and
their days in production were relatively few because midstream gas
processing
infrastructure has yet to come on line.
Still,
the numbers are impressive
(CLICK TO ACCESS). The 87 Utica wells collectively produced 12,836,662
cubic
feet of natural gas --– wet and dry -- in 2012 and 635,806 barrels of
oil (One
barrel of oil is equivalent to 42 gallons.).
“We
believe Ohio is now at the
beginning of an historic era in oil and gas production, said James
Zehringer,
ODNR director, as he convened a news conference officials dubbed the
“2012 State
of the Play” and streamed online.
"The
production from these
initial Utica wells make a compelling statement about the staggering
amount of
oil and gas resources Ohio's shale appears to contain."
Zehringer
praised the regulatory
structure his agency oversees and the due diligence state officials
performed
as exploration companies began securing permits to drill horizontal
wells. He
then reviewed the 150-year history of Ohio’s oil and gas industry. “We
believe
we are on the onset of a new boom,” he said.
“We
don’t want to diminish the
importance of the vertical an conventional wells," Zehringer said. "A
signle Utica well produced as much natural gas as 448 conventional
wells."
Still,
he said, “A single Utica
well produced as much oil as 312 conventional wells.”
Horizontal
wells in the Utica/Point
Pleasant play make up only 0.2% of all the wells producing oil and gas
in Ohio.
But of the 87 Utica horizontal wells put into production in 2012, they
collectively produced 12% of all the oil that came out of the state’s
ground
and 16% of all natural gas, the ODNR director reported…
Read
the rest of the article at the
Youngstown Business Journal
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