Since the Bakken and Eagle Ford shales took the energy industry by storm a few years back, another energy play has slowly crept into the limelight. It’s the Utica shale — an up-and-coming play that has drawn comparisons with the prolific Eagle Ford of Texas. Like the Eagle Ford, the Utica is expected to have a vast prospective area, massive hydrocarbon potential, and three zones containing oil, dry gas, and natural gas liquids.
Though relatively very little is known about the play’s true potential, results thus far have been encouraging. Let’s take a closer look at the play itself, its potential, and some of the major companies hoping to strike it rich.
A primer on the Utica
The Utica is a shale rock formation located thousands of feet below the Marcellus. Because the play is still in the infant stages of development, its geology and production potential are less well understood than the Marcellus. Located in the Appalachian Basin, the Utica spans several states but is located primarily in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Like the Marcellus, the Utica is composed of sedimentary rocks that contain potentially massive quantities of oil and gas. But unlike the Marcellus, the Utica is believed to contain a greater proportion of “wet” natural gas, which includes natural gas liquids such as butane, ethane, pentane, and propane.
The play is also much deeper than the Marcellus, with much of the sought-after wet gas located at depths of 6,000 feet or less in the outer fringes of the formation.
The Utica’s hydrocarbon and economic potential
According to the first assessment from the U.S. Geological Survey, the results from which were announced last year, the Utica shale contains 38 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas. That’s a little less than half the recoverable resource potential of the Marcellus, which USGS estimates to hold around 84 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.
Development of unconventional oil and gas resources has already been hailed as a major source of job creation over the next several decades. As the Utica’s potentially massive hydrocarbon reserves are gradually exploited, the play is expected to yield significant economic benefits for Ohio and for the country as a whole.
According to a report by IHS, a leading global energy research and consulting firm, development in the Utica will catapult Ohio to the third spot in the list of the top states by energy-sector employment by 2035. The report forecasts that Ohio’s unconventional oil and gas employment will surge to 144,000 by the close of this decade and come close to 275,000 by 2035.
If the Utica does turn out to live up to its expectations, it should provide a major boost to Ohio’s economy and help reverse decades of manufacturing-sector decline there.
Major Utica operators
Chesapeake Energy is by far the leading driller in Ohio’s Utica shale, with its core acreage concentrated in Carroll and surrounding counties. Steve …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance