Tuscarawas Valley Expecting Shale Boom to Hit Stride in 2014-2015

From the Times Reporter:
The oil and gas industry likely will hit its peak phase in the Tuscarawas Valley in 2014 and 2015, with as many as 4,000 wells drilled in the Utica shale play in eastern Ohio within the next two years. 
That was among the information that participants learned at the Tuscarawas Oil and Gas Alliance (TOGA) Summit on Tuesday at the Performing Arts Center at Kent State Tuscarawas. 
About 60 elected officials attended a breakfast, and more than 100 invited guests — representing government, the local oil and gas industry, healthcare, banking and tourism — attended the full session. 
“In 2014 and 2015, we’ll see a big ramp-up,” Rhonda Reda, executive director of the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program, told the audience during the main session. “We’re in the leasing and exploration phase now.” 
In 2011, just 33 wells were drilled and five were in production.
During her presentation, Reda shared statistics from a study commissioned by her organization and released in September:
  • Ohio’s oil and natural gas producers could distribute more than $1.6 billion in royalty payments to landowners, schools, businesses and communities, based on the estimate of 2,837 new Utica wells drilled and completed between 2011 and 2015. This could exceed the total amount of royalties paid for all geological formations between 2000 and 2010.
  • The industry could reinvest about $14 billion on new exploration and development by 2015. Among those investments are more than $500 million by MarkWest in Harrison County, $225 million by Timken in Canton and $64 million by Baker Hughes in Stark County.
  • Between 2011 and 2015, the industry will help create and support more than 204,520 jobs statewide due to the leasing, royalties, exploration, drilling production and pipeline construction activities for the Utica Shale formation in Ohio. Wages in the industry are projected to grow to more than $12 billion in annual salaries and personal income to Ohioans by 2015.
The Utica shale formation covers much of eastern Ohio, including all of Tuscarawas and surrounding counties. The Marcellus shale formation, which has produced a great deal of natural gas in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, is confined to a strip along the eastern border of the state. It includes Harrison County, most of Carroll County and the eastern edge of Tuscarawas County.
Read the rest of the article here.

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