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Geology News
Ohio Current Events

Abandoned mines and quarries are dangerous places! Every year about 20 to 30 people die in accidents that occur in abandoned mines across the United States. The victims range in age from preschool children to an 85 year-old mining veteran.

Instead of using 5 to 6 million gallons of water to fracture a well in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio, a company plans to use LPG (liquid petroleum gas or propane).

Jack Gerard of the American Petroleum Institute comments on opportunities for oil and natural gas production from shales in Ohio.

Chesapeake Energy has ten rigs focusing on the wet gas window of the Utica Shale in Ohio. “On a post-processing basis, peak rates from the wet gas window of the play have averaged approximately 415 bbls of oil, 260 bbls of NGL and 3.9 mmcf of natural gas per day, or approximately 1,325 boe per day.’ In their first quarter summary they report details on several Utica wells.

Several major natural gas drillers have developed a set of standards for hydraulic fracturing in the Appalachian Basin. The standards recommend practices for drilling, well design, water use, equipment use and public outreach.

It is not often that a new map published by a state geological survey has thousands of people excited to view it.

Technical details about this topic can be found in a
PowerPoint Presentation on the Ohio Geological Survey website.

“There is a credible connection between the wastewater injection activities near Youngstown and the recent earthquakes, including the magnitude 4 earthquake that occurred on New Year’s Eve, 2011. This connection is based on the close proximity of the earthquakes to the injection well and depth of injection, and the observation that these events began soon after the start of the injection activities.” Quoted from the USGS FAQ.

The state of Ohio has about 49,000 natural gas wells that together produced about 73 billion cubic feet of gas in 2011. However, one horizontal well in the Utica Shale produced 2.6 billion cubic feet.

Gulfport Energy plans to produce oil from the Utica Shale in Ohio from “super” well pads that will host at least three wells.

BP has leased 84,000 acres in northeast Ohio with intentions to drill for oil and natural gas in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale.

An article on the Platts.com website summarizes the 2012 drilling plans of Range Resources, EQT Production and Consol Energy.

Range Resources is starting to focus its Marcellus Shale drilling in a portion of southwestern Pennsylvania known as the “Super-Rich Area”.

Information for this story is in a .pdf document here (click the 2/21/2012 company presentation link)

This video and article feature some of the positive impacts that natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale has brought to the economy of Washington County, Pennsylvania and neighboring areas.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has temporarily shut down a waste injection well that is suspected to have triggered earthquakes. The state has nearly 200 other injection wells that have not been associated with seismic activity.

Total has an agreement to purchase a 25% stake in 619,000 acres of Utica Shale in eastern Ohio from Chesapeake Energy for $2.32 billion. That is an average price per acre of $14,991.

The-Vug.com has an impressive listing of mineral clubs organized by state. You might be surprised at how many clubs are listed and there is probably one that meets within a short drive of your home.

As environmental regulations hasten the closure of coal-fired power plants American Electric Power plans to build a 1bcf/day pipeline to deliver gas from wells in the Marcellus and Utica Shales.

An article on the Boston.com website explores possible developments related to the Marcellus Shale in 2012. A new lease environment, geographic shifts in activity, price directions and more.

Marathon Petroleum is preparing to refine oil produced from the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and western Pennslyvania. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates that the Utica Shale could yield between 1.3 and 5.5 billion barrels of crude.

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has installed temporary seismographs to determine if minor earthquakes near Youngstown, Ohio are related to a waste injection well.

Since 1972 the “Roadside Geology” series has provided introductory information on the geology of states and small regions of the United States. The books provide a combination of maps, travel logs, photos and commentary for the geology that can be seen along highways or visited at parks and public viewing areas. They are popular with geologists and others who are interested in the Earth.

In many parts of the Marcellus Shale gas play local residents are disappointed to see so many workers from over a thousand miles away getting high-paying jobs while local unemployment rates are very high. Letters similar to this one have been published in newspapers across the area underlain by the Marcellus Shale and other shales that produce natural gas..

Chesapeake Energy, Exxon Mobil and Hess are all working to acquire acreage in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio.

An article on The Columbus Dispatch website reports that about twenty-five schools in Ohio are currently working on geothermal heating and cooling projects. Ohio has a long history of school geothermal projects and at one time had the largest building in North America with geothermal heat – a 240,000 square foot middle school with 300 wells and 143 heat pumps.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition website has an article that provides safety advice for people who will be hunting in areas where natural gas drilling is taking place.

An article on the PittsburghLive.com website explains how regulations and costs of doing business in neighboring states can stimulate or deter the development of a resource such as natural gas. Not mentioned in the article is how a moratorium on Marcellus Shale drilling moved drilling out of New York and into Pennsylvania.

An article on the Patch.com website includes some valuable advice to people who have an interest in leasing their land for natural gas development.

Related Article: Mineral Rights

Natural gas companies have drilled a number of highly successful wells into the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio. Now, drilling, permitting, and acquisition activity is starting to boom.

An article on the FuelFix.com website explains how Utica Shale Formation assets in eastern Ohio are being valued at up to $15,000/acre. Just a few years ago landowners were leasing for just $10/acre.

The Marshall University Center for Business and Economic Research has prepared: Taxation of Natural Gas: A Comparative Analysis. This publication reviews the many methods of taxing natural gas 19 different states. You might be surprised at how many ways natural gas is being taxed.

Thousands of people across the United States have signed leases that give energy companies the right to drill on their land. However, many of these properties have mortgages that prohibit the property owner from entering into a mineral lease.

State and local governments have either been collecting revenues from Marcellus Shale activities or wishing that they were collecting revenues. An article on Platts.com explores some of the ways that state and local governments are generating revenues.

Parts of the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale contain worthy amounts of ethane which is a valuable feedstock for the plastics industry. Will it be shipped by pipeline to distant manufacturers or will local manufacturing industries develop?

The Ohio Geological Survey has an online presentation that summarizes the Marcellus Shale resource in Ohio. It also contains lots of information about the Utica Shale in Ohio.

The Ohio Geological Survey has suffered severe budget cuts and is now only half of its previous size. The state depends upon the Survey for information related to hazard mitigation, resource development and support of numerous programs. A recent study estimated that activities of the survey supported $575 million in economic development in 2010. Now that activities in the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale of eastern Ohio are taking off information from the Survey might be needed more than ever.

An Associated Press article examines how people who favor and oppose Marcellus Shale natural gas development have very different perceptions of problems and opportunities.

It is never politically popular to accept out-of-state waste and injection well owners in Ohio are taking heat because they are injecting Marcellus Shale drilling waste from Pennsylvania. An article in the Houston Chronicle explains why so much Pennsylvania wastewater is going to Ohio.

“Chesapeake Energy Corporation disclosed initial horizontal well drilling results in the wet gas and dry gas phases of the Utica Shale play in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

The Buell 10-11-5 8H in Harrison County, Ohio was drilled to a lateral length of 6,418 feet and achieved a peak rate of 9.5 million cubic feet (mmcf) per day of natural gas and 1,425 barrels (bbls) per day of natural gas liquids and oil (liquids), or 3,010 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day.” Quoted from the Chesapeake Energy press release.

A sequence of rocks above the Marcellus Shale, known as the “Upper Devonian Shales” might hold significant amounts of recoverable natural gas and natural gas liquids. From top to bottom the Upper Devonian Shales, Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale are the “stacked plays of the Appalachians”.

Although data is only available for 16 wells drilled into a Utica Shale resource that has a geographic extent of 170,000 square miles, that is not stopping oil and gas companies from spending billions of dollars on acreage.

An article on the Cleveland.com website reports that unconventional natural gas and oil in Ohio could create over 200,000 jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic activity.

Ready.gov is a website that connects visitors to state, county, regional, tribal and other emergency management agencies in all fifty states.

Communities in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have passed bans on hydraulic fracturing within their political boundaries. In some instances these bans have been overturned because the power to regulate of oil and gas drilling belongs to State governments. Now a company in New York has sued a town that passed a ban on drilling.

With just a small number of wells drilled into the Utica Shale using current technology, the potential of that rock unit remains unclear. However, a number of companies are placing big bets on the Utica – especially in Ohio.

Shell Oil Company is interested in developing a large-scale ethylene cracker plant somewhere over the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Ohio. The plant would process natural gas liquids into a variety of chemical products.

“The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U. S. Geological Survey.” Quoted from the USGS news release.

USGS Map

Earthquake waves travel very efficiently in the crust of the eastern United States. As a result the Magnitude 5.9 earthquake that occurred today in Virginia was felt in at least 22 states plus the District of Colombia. Ground shaking has been reported to the USGS and by news accounts in: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Indiana, Georgia, Florida and Washington, DC.

About three billion cubic feet of natural gas is being produced every day from the Marcellus Shale, an amount that is expected to grow significantly as more wells are drilled. Moving that gas to market will require thousands of miles of new pipelines, ranging from small-diameter gathering lines that serve individual wells to main lines that can be three-feet or more in diameter.

A recent announcement of highly successful wells drilled into the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio has many communities excited about the potential opportunities and problems associated with a shale drilling boom.

Chesapeake Energy announced a major new natural gas liquids play in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio based upon results from six horizontal and nine vertical wells. The company holds 1.25 million net leasehold acres in the Utica Shale and believes that they could be worth $15 – $20 billion in increased value to the company.