The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has just issued production numbers for the first quarter of 2017. The bad news is that oil production continued to slide in 1Q17, down 29% from the same quarter in 2016. However, that’s an improvement from 4Q16 when oil production was down 44% (see Ohio Utica Production 4Q16 – Oil Down, NatGas Up). So oil is down, percentage-wise, but down less than last quarter. The good news continues to be natural gas production, which was up 13% over the same period in 2016, which is in line with last quarter when it was up 14% over the same period in the previous year. Eclipse Resources dominated the top 5 spots on the natural gas production list, all of those wells drilled in Monroe County (with 3 of the top 5 being on one well pad–the Holliday pad). Ascent Resources continued to dominate oil production with 20 of the top 25 most productive wells. However, Eclipse had the #1 most productive oil well, which continues to be the record-breaking Purple Hayes (was the longest on-shore lateral well in the world, until Eclipse drilled another longer one, in Ohio). Purple Hayes is the gift that keeps on giving, quarter after quarter. Below we have the ODNR’s high level overview of the numbers, along with MDN’s own exclusive analysis showing: the top 25 producing gas wells, the top 25 producing oil wells, and then the top 25 gas and oil wells as ranked by average production per day. There is a difference…
