Potential New OH Utica Driller First Drills Conventional Oil Well
A very small independent oil and gas company headquartered in Denver, CO, Hinto Energy (market cap of $5.4 million), issued a press release today to say they’ve drilled a shallow, conventional oil well in the Berea Sandstone of Ohio. A conventional driller targeting shallow rock layers is typically not something that catches our attention. The thing that does catch our attention is that Hinto is also eyeing other rock layers for the leases they own in Ohio–including the Utica Shale. Hinto has not previously drilled any horizontal shale wells, from what we can tell. It appears they didn’t even drill this conventional Ohio Berea well as their announcement states they will maintain a “75% non-operated interest” (i.e. ownership) in the well. Non-operated means they didn’t do the drilling. While this isn’t big news by any stretch, it is notable that yet another E&P is sniffing around the Ohio Utica…
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A couple of nifty maps to share with you, courtesy of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources. The ODNR recently updated their maps showing both Utica Shale activity (permitted, drilled, producing, etc.), and showing the same for Marcellus wells in Ohio. Yes! There are a few Marcellus wells in Ohio…
PDC Energy, with 67,000 acres of leases in Ohio’s Utica Shale, is not among the largest Utica drillers. But they’re by no means insignificant either. The company released their 2015 capital expenditure (capex) budget and production guidance yesterday. PDC says they will idle their single drilling rig in the Ohio Utica in 2015 and spend just $38 million in the Utica next year (compared to $190 million in 2014) to finish up several wells already begun. PDC says the price of natgas is just too darned low right now and that they will be back when the price goes up. (Our thought: PDC will have a long wait!) PDC is instead spending their money in the Niobrara Shale in Colorado–although the company plans to spend 14% less next year than they did this year…
On Friday the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) released their quarterly production numbers for third quarter 2014 for OH’s Utica oil and gas wells. The report shows that oil production increased 22% over the previous quarter, and natural gas increased a whopping 48% over the previous quarter. Below we have the ODNR’s high level overview of the numbers, along with our own analysis showing: the top 10 producing gas wells, the top 10 producing oil wells, and then the top 10 gas and oil wells as ranked by average production per day. There is a difference! The longer an oil or gas well is online, the less it produces. Newer wells produce more. So we show you which wells are not just producing the most quantity overall, but which wells are producing at the fastest (most productive) rates–even if they haven’t yet been online a full three months (92 days). We also include the complete list of 673 wells that had at least some Utica oil or gas production in 3Q14 in a more usable format than that provided by the ODNR…