Ohio Petroleum Council Calls Utica/Marcellus “Game Changer”

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Terry Fleming, executive director of the Ohio Petroleum Council, recently visited the offices of The Daily Jeffersonian newspaper to talk about Utica and Marcellus drilling in the state. Among his comments were predictions about just how big the economic impact of shale drilling will become in Ohio over the next few years:

The potential of the Marcellus and Utica deposits is difficult to overstate, he said.

"We hope that what we think is here in Ohio — wet gas and oil — if it’s here in the amounts we think it is, then that could be a game changer for this state. It could be the biggest thing that’s ever happened to Ohio, particularly eastern and southeastern Ohio.

"But we won’t know that until we actually drill a hole. Right now, we only have seven producing wells. So, we are literally at the infancy of this thing.

"By the year 2015 — again, if the play is what we think it is — there could be as many as 500 wells operating in Ohio in the Utica shale."

Currently, the state and local governments get about $14 million in tax revenue from the oil and gas industry annually, Fleming said.

By 2015, that figure could rise to $1 billion when increased sales taxes and incomes taxes from new workers are added in, he said.*

*Cambridge (OH) The Daily Jeffersonian (Apr 2, 2012) – Area people have the savvy to reach logical conclusions about drilling

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