Early in the development of Ohio’s Utica Shale, drillers like Aubrey McClendon (Chesapeake Energy at the time) targeted Ohio counties like Carroll and Columbiana, in the “northern” part of the Utica play. It didn’t take long for drillers to figure out the “core” of the play where the most oil and gas can be found is in the south, in counties like Harrison, Belmont, Monroe, Noble and Guernsey. Jefferson County sort of straddles both the northern and southern parts of the Utica and was left out. Not any more.
