[Serial_Worrier]

I'm lovin' the smell of cornucopia! Thanks OF2!

[babystrangeloop]

Here's what I have to say: ... The Buckeye State!

It's so classy!

Walmart Invaded By Nomadic Tribe of Oil Riggers
Oil Men Have Nowhere Left to Go

Nathan Holl / Energy and Capital / February 13th, 2012

In the wake of the North Dakota oil boom many of the oil riggers and incoming job-seekers have been taking up residence in the Williston Wal-Mart parking lot. ...

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman justified the eviction saying:

“It’s just not appropriate for people to be living in our parking lot. We want to be good neighbors during challenging times, but Walmart needs to provide a safe, clean, and comfortable environment for its customers and employees.”

The eviction leaves the riggers in a precarious position. It wasn’t as though they freely elected to live in the Walmart parking lot because of its many perks, it was symptomatic of a larger problem facing the Williston community; There is literally nowhere these men can live.

Housing in the area has become scarce and apartment complexes, in response to the increased demand, have set rent prices sky high. Some complexes have boosted prices three times higher than they were at the same time last year. ...

[copious.abundance]

^
Hey now wait a minute there ... that's in North Dakota.

The good thing about this particular one is it's near several big cities in Ohio. If they run out of places to live they can always take up residence in some abandoned house in Youngstown.

[copious.abundance]

^Speaking of Youngstown, the jobs are a-piling up in that area even though it's only in its baby stages.

Shale boom gives rise to 1,400-plus new jobs in Valley

The contested debate regarding Ohio jobs related to Utica and Marcellus shale exploration continues to be off the charts, with estimates as low as 20,000, as high as 200,000 and everywhere in between.

To date, local or locally based businesses have created or soon will create more than 1,400 jobs related to natural gas and oil exploration.

Nearly one-third of those jobs have or will be created by Vallourec, the French-based owners of V&M Star and VAM LLC.

Others, such as Houston-based Exterran Energy Solutions, Russia-based TMK and Girard-based Valley Electrical Consolidated already have topped or have announced they will exceed 100 area jobs.

[...]

And it looks like they're doing something to address the earthquake problem.

Ohio: Rules Tightened for Wells

State officials on Friday instituted stricter rules for oil and gas industry disposal wells like one that scientists have linked to minor earthquakes in Youngstown. The rules, contained in a report by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, will require a well owner to conduct and analyze geophysical tests on a new well before disposal begins and will prohibit drilling into deep Precambrian rocks that are more likely to contain seismic faults. The report found a “compelling argument” that the quakes in Youngstown since last March were induced by the disposal of waste liquids from the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. The state will require the installation of pressure monitoring systems at all wells and electronic record-keeping by trucking firms that bring the waste liquids to the wells.

[copious.abundance]

Utica shale bringing jobs to Eastern Ohio: Liquids-rich shale stokes economic development

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) —The hardscrabble city of Youngstown, Ohio, hadn’t seen a major industrial expansion in decades.

That finally changed in 2010, when European conglomerate Vallourec SA said it would significantly scale up in the region with an investment of $650 million and 350 jobs for a new pipe-making plant for its V&M Star unit.

“It’s probably the largest steel plant in Youngstown since the 1920s,” said Tony Paglia of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

At first, the V&M Star planned to supply pipe for horizontal drilling in the oil and gas fields of Marcellus shale, mostly across the state line in Pennsylvania.

Now, more job creation opportunity has emerged closer to home as energy companies develop one of the newest and hottest shale plays in the U.S. -- the Utica shale of Ohio. Much of the oil-rich region lies within a corner of the country that’s suffered from high unemployment for many years.

“V&M Star decided when they saw the Marcellus shale they needed to have a plant nearby that provided products [there],” Paglia said in a telephone interview. “Once they started that, then the Utica shale became prominent -- so that makes it an even better project.”

A spokesman for V&M Star referred to published remarks by President Joel Mastervich, who said the region is “extremely well-suited” to supply local shale plays and that the area offers high quality workers.

About 1,500 jobs have been added or announced in the last 18 months in the Mahoning Valley -- the region that includes Youngstown and the surrounding region.


Vallourec’s new V&M Star plant in Youngstown nears completion as a supplier for pipe to the developing energy fields in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

[...]

[Cloud9]

Maybe, just maybe as we burn through the last of the easy stuff we can bring enough of the hard stuff on line to prevent total collapse. I see complexes just as large as the one pictured vacant here in Florida. Too bad they are in the wrong place.

[Beery1]

Obviously you weren't around for the very nasty earthquake in the mid-eighties, at least two decades before any shale drilling was occurring.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/geosurvey/fa ... fault.aspx

"The record of earthquakes in Ohio since the 1980's is skewed from the normal distribution because of the large number of felt earthquakes since 1987 at Ashtabula, Ohio. These earthquakes (at least 40) are thought to be associated with a now-abandoned deep injection well at Ashtabula."

As for the idea that these were 'nasty' earthquakes, they were all under magnitude 4.0. Such earthquakes are usually so light that it's easy to miss them. Such an earthquake can hardly be described as 'nasty'. When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to consider a 4.0 earthquake a non-event, often reported on the radio without my even having felt it.

[seenmostofit]

Oilfinder2, may I ask what your basis is for considering the Utica the Bakken? The Bakken covers an area probably larger than Ohio, let alone the area referenced on the above listed map for where the oily Utica might be. It would seem that based on area alone the Utica would be a midget cousin at best, when compared to the Bakken?

[copious.abundance]

^
When I said "another Bakken," I never meant to imply it was the same geographical size as the Bakken - just that it was a another oil-bearing shale similar to the Bakken.

My road atlas says North Dakota is 70,703 square miles. Ohio is 41,330 square miles.

Here is a more recent map showing the (known) extent of the Utica shale in Ohio. Looks like it covers about 1/3 of the state (give or take), with the oil and wet gas windows covering maybe 1/4 of the state. So that's about 10,000 square miles.


link

Here's a map showing the extent of the Bakken shale in North Dakota. It also looks like it covers about 1/3 of the state. Not sure exactly which areas are thermally mature, are in oil vs gas windows, etc., but presuming the entire 1/3 is in the thermally-mature oil window, that would come to about 23,000 square miles.



So yes, in terms of geographical extent the Ohio Utica shale would not be as big as the Bakken shale. However, as this chart here shows, it tends to be thicker than the Bakken (140 feet vs 100 feet), plus it has better porosity, and more oil per square mile. So while it may be geographically smaller than the Bakken, the other factors could make it more productive - maybe.

[seahorse3]

OF, in some other threads there are people saying the extraction costs of these US tight oil plays is about $80 per barrel. Do you have any info on that?

[seenmostofit]

So yes, in terms of geographical extent the Ohio Utica shale would not be as big as the Bakken shale. However, as this chart here shows, it tends to be thicker than the Bakken (140 feet vs 100 feet), plus it has better porosity, and more oil per square mile. So while it may be geographically smaller than the Bakken, the other factors could make it more productive - maybe.

Always a maybe in there until someone drills out a county worth of it and we can see what might there I guess.

[Tanada]

This one snuck under my Radar, Harrison County Ohio, the one county where tight oil is being produced in large quantities based on state government supplied data, has signed a deal with CBM to develop tight oil and natural gas wells on county property.

CADIZ - Harrison County commissioners on Wednesday signed an agreement leasing 357 acres to CBM Ohio, a Cadiz-based shale gas market company.

With an option on an additional 148 acres, which are being sought under abandonment rights, the lease will cover the Industrial Park properties.

"This is good news for Harrison County," said Commissioner Dale Norris, as the agreement will pay $5,000 per acre and 19 percent royalties. "We have been in the process of leasing this ground for the last nine months and there are many people here in the courthouse who played a role in getting this accomplished."

"Due to the fact that there were some complications in the prior lease, several office holders, including the treasurer, auditor, recorder, clerk of courts, Judge Shawn Hervey and Prosecuting Attorney Michael Washington worked with the commissioners to get this accomplished," Norris continued. "It is only through all of their efforts, and CBM Ohio working with us, that we have come to an agreement,"

"We appreciate the commissioners allowing a small company that is local to try and take on a project like this," said CBM General Manager Bob Griffin.

Griffin said CBM produces methane from abandoned coal mines in the area and has two coal base methane wells on the property. "We are looking into venturing into the Utica play now."

Griffin also stated his company is in the process of lining up some drillers. "Eventually we will be able to work out a surface agreement and place some drilling sites. We feel this will be a lucrative agreement for both parties," Griffin concluded.

http://hsconnect.com/page/content.detai ... l?nav=5010

Some of you may recall that Harrison County Ohio set a state record for tight oil production in 2012 and the 2013 number is expected to be higher still. Looks like the county government is eagerly cooperating with the oil boom there.

[Tanada]

Using publicly available data, MacKenzie said that as of Nov. 2, the state had issued 363 new drilling permits for shale.

Producers had drilled 337 wells, he said, but only 174 wells were actually producing - each well averaging 4.3 million cubic feet of gas per day and 302 barrels of oil.

Ohio is home to roughly 50,000 conventional gas and oil wells, he said, and last year, the tiny number of shale wells, representing less than two-tenths of 1 percent of all wells, produced 12 percent of all oil and 15 percent of the gas coming out of the ground.

"The 2013 production numbers will be significant," he said, adding that the private projections he has seen are difficult to believe.

James Halloran, an energy analyst and member of the gas association's board of directors, told the crowd attending the symposium that the state anticipates issuing 2,573 Utica drilling permits by the end of 2015.

The state estimates that 1,830 wells will have been drilled by the end of 2015

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... r_tha.html

Optimism is running very high at the moment, the next few months should make it clear how realistic the optimism is. Currently the Utica shale wells are averaging 300 bpd of crude oil plus NGL and Natural Gas in Carrolton and Harrison counties. That might not sound like a lot to people in big oil states but for Ohio it is huge. 1% of all wells in Ohio are shale wells and that 1% is producing 12% of the oil pulled out of the ground in 2013. That means if they get up to 10% of wells they will more than double the states oil production and almost all of that increase will be tight oil.

[Subjectivist]

I find myself experiencing a strong case of cognitive dissonance. I believe humans are messing up God's creation through pollution and global warming while at the same time I want the state where I was born and live to prosper.

The Utica shale is creating a quiet boom in Carrolton and Harrison counties and some of my wife's cousins have gotten very well paid jobs as a result. This is great for Ohio and at the same time horrible for the environment.

[Tanada]

Having been to Cleveland several times I would say it gets a bad rap. Back in the 1970's it was a pest hole like Detroit, but the city government has gone to great lengths to revitalize and reorient the city into a modern real city like Chicago or Sacramento.

It also happens to be a major Lake port and near the western edge of the Utica shale so if things really take off in drilling Ohio there should be a lot of cargo moving through Cleveland.

[Tanada]

Back on topic with laser like focus.....

Here are some of the highlights from president and CEO Mark Houser’s 27-minute presentation.

1. The midstream bottlenecks in Ohio’s Utica shale are disappearing, he said.

More than $12 billion of pipelines and processing plants have been constructed in eastern Ohio, he said.

That is a number that is being repeatedly used by the energy industry in Ohio.

He said the Utica East Ohio processing plant at Kensington added its second train or unit last week. Two more units are planned at the plant in southern Columbiana County.

The new unit was being filled up on Wednesday and processing will begin soon, Houser said.

2. EVEP, one of the EnerVest family of companies, expects to drill 10 to 15 wells with five to seven different partners outside of its existing joint venture in 2014 in the Utica shale, he said.

He said that two to four of those wells would be in what’s called the volatile oil window with less mature oil.

The company has said it intends to search for the volatile oil with unnamed partners in Stark and Tuscarawas counties.

Very few wells, perhaps 10, have been drilled in the Utica’s volatile oil window, Houser said.

That would be done to demonstrate the productivity of the volatile oil window.

The volatile oil window lies west of the wet gas window where most of the Ohio drilling has occurred in Carroll, Harrison, Belmont, Guernsey, Noble and Washington counties.

There is a lot of oil in the Utica rock, but getting it out may be difficult, Houser said.

3. The company is actively involved in a 10-county JV with Chesapeake Energy and the French energy company Total. That venture is expected to drill 160 wells next year.

Compression constraints on the JV wells should be mostly relaxed by summer 2014, he said.

The JV intends to have 540 wells by the end of 2014.

The overall plan calls for 4,600 wells in the 10 counties over 18 years.

EVEP has about 41,000 acres in the wet gas window in Ohio and another 9,000 acres in western Pennsylvania.

It also has 79,000 acres in the volatile oil window: 78,000 in Ohio and 1,000 in Pennsylvania.

It also has another 44,000 in the two states in the dry gas window.

That is a total working interest acreage of 173,000 acres.

It also owns an overriding royalty interest on 880,000 Utica acres.

4. Houser said his company participated on a non-opposition basis with Pittsburgh-based EQT on two wells in the Utica shale.

The wells were initially producing 500 barrels per day, but that later flattened to 80 to 100 barrels per day, he said.

He called those two of the best oil wells his company had seen in the Utica.

Its own oil wells in the UTica had flattened to about 30 barrels per day, so the EQT results were encouraging, he said.

He offered little other information on that joint effort.

EQT has drilled three wells in the Utica in Ohio’s Guernsey County.

It intends to drill eight Utica wells in Ohio in 2013 at a cost of $40 million.

EQT, in its third quarter 2013 report, said the production results from those Utica wells were “not eye-popping.” But officials said they were encouraged by the initial results.

That assessment came from spokesman Mark Porges.

The three wells were producing 42 percent oil, 28 percent natural gas liquids and 30 percent natural gas.

The wells are producing the revenue equivalent of natural gas wells with IPs of nearly 9 million cubic feet per day, he said.

The wells cost about $8.5 million each, although officials hope to reduce that by $2 million per well. The average lateral length was 5,800 feet.

Those three Utica wells are out-producing the company’s first Marcellus wells, said spokesman Steven Schlotterbeck.

The company has 14,000 net acres in the Utica shale.

More at the link
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio ... g-1.452578

[Subjectivist]

Tanada, I do not dis the place. Just grounding Oily's high-flying nonsense in reality, the "quiet boom in Carrolton and Harrison counties".

Please tell me you don't have me confused with th cornucopians? Pretty please with syrup on top!