In a move that is sure to bring both cheers of support and wails of protest, last week a councilman for the city of Steubenville, OH asked officials to consider leasing Read More “Steubenville, OH Councilman Wants to Frack City Parks”
The latest Utica Shale permits and wells drilled numbers, as of May 4:
Read More “Latest Grand Tally for OH Utica Shale Well Permits: 639”
Gulfport Energy Corporation reported its first quarter financial and operating results yesterday, and there’s lots of talk about their efforts in the Utica Shale. Gulfport includes details about their wells and the oil and gas production they’re achieving in the Utica.
Here’s the Gulfport operational highlights for 1Q13 along with their Utica Shale Operational Update (complete with impressive 24-hour production rate numbers for the current nine operating wells that are now online):
Read More “Gulfport Energy 1Q13: Utica Utica Utica”
Magnum Hunter Resources’ subsidiary Alpha Resources has just taken possession of a “robotic drilling rig” that it plans to use to drill Utica Shale wells for the next three years. The robotic rig can, by itself, lift the entire drilling rig six inches off the ground and rotate it and move it to a new position and location.
According to Magnum Hunter CEO Gary Evans, the rig is “state of the art” and Magnum has worked with the manufacturer, Schramm, over the past six months to develop it.
Read More “Alpha Hunter Takes Delivery of ‘Robotic Drilling Rig’ for Utica”
Halcón Resources, a Utica Shale driller, issued their first quarter financial and operational update yesterday. With regard to the Utica, the company reports they operated two drilling rigs in Ohio and Pennsylvania (yes, there is Utica in PA too!), drilling and completing four wells in 1Q13.
Select portions of the Halcón update:
Read More “Halcón Resources 1Q13: Drilled & Completed 4 Utica Wells”
The latest numbers from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) shows that Utica Shale permits have risen to a total of 627, out of which 310 of them have been (or are being) drilled.
Here’s a summary of the latest numbers, along with a table showing all of the permits issued as of April 27, listing the county, town, driller and well name:
Read More “OH Utica Permits Now 627 – See Who & Where”
In December, MDN told you the name of a newly formed joint venture between drilling company Hilcorp and midstream company NiSource would be Hickory Bend. The new joint venture will build a wet gas (natural gas liquids) pipeline and processing plant somewhere in the Youngstown, OH area (see Mahoning Utica Pipeline/Processing Plant “Moving Forward”). At the time, no plans had been announced about where the pipeline or cryogenic gas processing plant will be located.
Although the jv is still mum on a pipeline route (they’re acquiring lease rights to build it), we do know where the processing plant will be built…
Read More “Location ID’d for Mahoning County, OH Cryo Processing Plant”
The executive vice president of the Ohio Oil & Gas Association, Thomas Stewart, isn’t buying the Bloomberg News theory that Ohio’s Shale boom is over before it’s really even begun (see Bloomberg Says Ohio Utica Shale is Gassy, Not Oily). Stewart says the oil is there but may present some challenges in retrieving it–challenges that technology can solve.
Comments from Stewart, including his view on where the Utica “fairway” is located:
Read More “OOGA Rep Says Bloomberg Wrong About OH Shale Boom”
The Barnesville Exempted Village School District in Belmont County, OH has just signed a lease with Antero Resources for $5,700 per acre plus 20% royalties. Antero also kicked in an extra gift of $37,500 making the grand total for the lease bonus just over $400,000 for the school district. The school’s superintendent Randy Lucas said Antero plans to start drilling “sometime over the next two years”…
Read More “OH School District Gets $400K Lease Bonus from Antero Resources”
GreenHunter Water is crowing about the sale of its first MAG Tank, a new above-ground storage tank that uses a unique design and is modular, letting drillers add to or subtract from the tank as needed at the drill pad site. The new tank was sold to an unidentified “large independent oil and gas producer” that will use the new tank at a multi-well Utica Shale drill pad site in southeast Ohio. MDN’s guess is that it was sold to either Chesapeake Energy or Gulfport Energy. Increasingly, open pits (so-called “frack ponds”) used to store fracking fluids and brine are being regulated out of existence, which means tanks will be required to replace them. Enter the MAG Tank.
Today’s announcement from GreenHunter:
Read More “GreenHunter Water Sells First "MAG Tank" to Utica Driller”
An article from the Warren (OH) Tribune Chronicle tackles the thorny question of whether or not oil and gas drilling in Ohio is now passé…an also-ran…washed up…kaput.
It begins this way…
Read More “Utica Angst Continues – A Close Look at the Utica Tea Leaves”
Chesapeake Energy has just opened a new field office in Belmont County, OH at the Fox Commerce Park, just west of St. Clairsville:
Read More “Chesapeake Opens New Regional Office in Belmont County, OH”
The most recent weekly report from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) shows that Ohio has now issued 605 Utica Shale permits to drill. Of those, 297 wells have been/are being drilled, and 89 wells are now producing. Although recent talk from Bloomberg and others has attempted to throw cold water on the Utica Shale, there’s no denying it’s still white hot.
Here are the the numbers from the latest report, and the grand tallies for where all those permits have been issued—by county, and by driller:
Read More “Ohio Passes “Magic 600” Utica Shale Permits Issued”
Yesterday, MDN told you about EV Energy Partners/EnverVest’s (EVEP) mission to sell at least some of the 539,000 acres of Utica Shale leases they hold in Ohio (see EV Energy Partners Deal to Sell 104K Utica Acres Dead, What Now?). As part of the investor update call with EVEP on Tuesday, company chairman John Walker went on a PR offensive by saying drillers are watching how much oil will be produced by a well in Tuscarawas County (where EVEP is trying to unload acreage), and by saying the cost to drill a Utica well has come down, by up to 50%, from what it was when drillers first started in the Utica just a few years ago.
Walker’s comments from Tuesday:
Read More “EVEP’s Utica PR Offensive: Good Oil Pressure, Low Drilling Costs”
EV Energy Partners/EnerVest Executive Chairman John Walker admitted yesterday that a deal to sell the company’s interest in 104,000 Utica Shale acres has fallen apart. MDN has chronicled the journey thus far in a number of articles. In September 2013, EVEP announced they had put 539,000 Utica acres on the auction block and were confident they would sell it by year’s end and receive in the neighborhood of $6 billion (see EnerVest Puts 539,000 Utica Shale Acres on Auction Block). That didn’t happen.
Earlier this year, EVEP seemed to pull back from the original offer and instead push 104,000 acres concentrated in Stark, Tuscarawas and surrounding counties (see EnerVest Strategy: Sell Utica, Drill Vertical, Expand Midstream). That smaller deal has now also “failed” according to yesterday’s call. Apparently the price was right, but the terms were not. So what happens now?
Read More “EV Energy Partners Deal to Sell 104K Utica Acres Dead, What Now?”
Even though the 2012 production numbers for Ohio have still not been released, Bloomberg has declared Ohio’s dreams of producing large quantities of crude oil now dead and buried. Bloomberg says the Utica Shale play has turned out much more "gassy" than "oily". As their evidence, Bloomberg points to Ohio Utica asset sales now offered by some of the state’s biggest drillers, along with the opinions of a few analysts:
Read More “Bloomberg Says Ohio Utica Shale is Gassy, Not Oily”