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Chesapeake’s First Ohio Utica Shale Production Numbers

conventional v unconventional gas drillingChesapeake Energy has filed their first production report with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) for nine wells they drilled in the Ohio Utica Shale/Point Pleasant formations for 2011. A copy of the report is embedded below. The big news is that a single well in Harrison County—in production for just six months of 2011—produced 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

That single well was 2 percent of the state’s entire natural gas production for all of 2011. Put in perspective, Ohio has 49,000 conventional natural gas wells in production. That one well is producing an average of 300 times more natural gas than a conventionally drilled well. Behold the power of hydraulic fracturing.

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Guest Post: Peters Twp Responds to MDN on Act 13 Lawsuit

Last week, MDN wrote an article about the just-filed lawsuit by a group of Pennsylvania townships seeking to strike down provisions in a new PA law referred to as Act 13 (see this MDN story). Act 13 preempts local zoning ordinances that prohibit or regulate oil and gas drilling and replaces those ordinances with a set of rules from the state. In essence, Act 13 substitutes the state’s “one size fits all” zoning ordinance for local zoning ordinances. MDN’s comment at the end of that article was that in examining some of the attachments to the filed lawsuit it seems to MDN that anti-drillers are the ones driving the lawsuit.

David Ball, a council member from Peters Township (Washington County), PA—one of the towns filing the lawsuit—emailed MDN to challenge our view and assessment that he and others filing the lawsuit are anti-drilling, and to further explain their reasons for the lawsuit. MDN asked permission to publish his comments and he accepted. This is not the very first, but perhaps the second or third guest post on MDN. We are happy (from time to time) to offer guest posts that disagree with our own views if that post is courteous, serious and advances the discussion. This one does and we thank Mr. Ball for taking the time to write.

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Ohio Petroleum Council Calls Utica/Marcellus “Game Changer”

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:

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New Video: Women of the Marcellus

MDN is really pleased to share a new video highlighting how Marcellus Shale development is impacting families in Pennsylvania. While many know about the economic impacts and consumer savings made possible by shale gas, this video highlights the personal stories of three families whose lives have been made materially better because of Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania.

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Big Economic Impact of Midstream Projects in OH & PA

A pair of stories about how the midstream is transforming western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio recently ran in the Youngstown, OH The Business Journal. Midstream refers to the infrastructure that gets natural gas to market, including pipelines and processing plants. Right now and for the foreseeable future, spending on midstream projects in Ohio is likely larger, from an economic impact standpoint, than exploration and production.

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