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Permalink Reply by Mike Murphy on August 3, 2015 at 5:46am

every wells in the Utica run nnw and sse  go to Uticashalemaps.com  and zoom in on the map and u will see well direction no wells run ssw and there are many wells drilled in both directions from the same pad ......look at carroll county ohio .......county with most drilled and producing wells in ohio.......there are no wells drilled ssw they will never change .....if they change they would be drilling through other wells that are running nnw or sse....they drill in these directions because that is the way the formation runs under the ground

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Permalink Reply by Mike Murphy on August 3, 2015 at 5:58am

Utica Shale - Horizontal Wells Drilled in Ohio

Red push pins are Utica Shale drilling locations.     Red lines are approximate paths of horizontal well legs.

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Each red push pin on this map represents the surface location of a horizontal well drilled in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio as of late November, 2013. Not included are wells that were permitted but yet to be drilled at that time. You can use the navigation tools in the upper left corner of the map to zoom in and out or to pan laterally. You can click the "map" or "satellite" buttons in the upper right corner to switch the basemap between road maps and satellite images. If you click on a push pin, the company that permitted the well can be seen along with the API number of the well. Thin red lines that extend away from each push pin represent horizontal legs of the well. These can extend underground up to two miles beyond the drilling location. The data used to produce this map is public information published on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Resources website.

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Permalink Reply by Carl Krebsbach on August 3, 2015 at 7:22am

Think of the shale as being similar to a  phone book.  The laterals are drilled through all the pages of the phone book, front to back, giving access to the gas and oil between all the pages of the book, up to a certain distance away from the lateral.

If the laterals were oriented SW to NE (90 degrees to how they are being drilled), it would be like drilling parallel to the pages of the phone book.  The page next to the hole would shield the gas on the other side from the hole, reducing the amount of gas that the lateral can draw out.

The layers of shale (pages of the phone book) are aligned with the Appalachian Mountains and the laterals are drilled through all the pages.

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Permalink Reply by lance on August 3, 2015 at 11:30am

OK Thank You for the info...

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Permalink Reply by Tim Tarr on August 4, 2015 at 7:39am

Now I'll throw a curve. The first well drilled in my Township had a strange orientation. Never noticed it until I went back and looked at the plat a few years later. Not 90 degrees but ~30 degrees At the time I think it had to do with unit issues (other company's held leases) and they wanted to do a test well. Not long after well drilled they acquired most of the leases in the Twp.
I was told at the time when they drilled that well "Their eyes lit up". Five years later almost all the Twp. is HBP'ed.

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