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Permalink Reply by Kathi Albertson on September 2, 2014 at 4:20am

What direction do the laterals go in the Clinton? Are they SE and NW like the Utica?

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Permalink Reply by Mike Murphy on September 2, 2014 at 4:55am

A modern technology and a very familiar sandstone may hold new riches for Ohioans.

Horizontal drilling is being used in Stark County by one Texas-based drilling company to access natural gas and oil in the Clinton sandstone and to boost production.

EnerVest Ltd., based in Houston, has quietly drilled seven miniaturized horizontal wells in the sandstone that has been heavily drilled in the past.

Clinton sandstone is found under 25 counties in eastern Ohio including those in the Akron-Canton-Cleveland area.

EnerVest has drilled three wells in Nimishillen Township. Two are in Washington Township and one each is in Bethlehem and Marlboro townships, according to state records.

An eighth well, south of Canton in Pike Township, has been approved by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil & Gas Resource Management. It has not yet been drilled, according to state records.

The company on Aug. 5 filed to drill a ninth horizontal well. It will be in Nimishillen Township.

Two of the EnerVest wells had deeper wells that were plugged back to permit the shallower horizontal drilling, said ODNR spokesman Mark Bruce.

It will be at least 90 days before EnerVest can determine how successful the new horizontal wells might be, said company spokesman Ron Whitmire.

The company’s Clinton’s initiative is new, started in the last few months, he said. "We’re in the very early stages."

The results from the new wells will determine whether EnerVest expands the Clinton drilling, Whitmire said.

EnerVest has drilled wells in the Utica shale by itself and with partners Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Total, the French energy giant.

The goal is to see if "today’s technology will work in this play," he said.

The Clinton wells would go down about 4,600 feet to reach the sandstone. The wells’ laterals or horizontal legs would be about 1,500 feet in length, according to experts.

That is shorter than the much publicized horizontal wells being drilled in Carroll, Harrison, Belmont, Guernsey, Monroe, Noble and Washington counties. Those wells in the Utica shale have multiple laterals that may extend outward two miles or more.

The new wells would be far cheaper: perhaps $1 million to $3 million per well, compared to $6 million to $11 million per well in the Utica shale.

That will create a new financial opportunity for Ohio’s smaller drilling companies and landowners, said Shawn Bennett of Energy in Depth-Ohio, a pro-drilling trade group.

"It’s a great opportunity and we hope they are very successful," he said of the new wells.

The risk is that all rocks are different, he said. He asked: Will the Utica technology transfer to the Clinton drilling successfully? "We don’t know yet if it will work or if it will be profitable," he said.

In tapping the sandstone, the drillers are going after resource rocks, not source rocks like the Utica shale, he said.

The Ohio Oil and Gas Association, a statewide trade group, is very supportive of the new drilling efforts, said spokesman Mike Chadsey.

It is an opportunity for Ohio’s small independent oil and gas producers "to get off the sidelines and back in the game," he said.

Those companies have largely been unable to take advantage of the more costly Utica shale drilling that erupted in eastern Ohio in mid-2010, he said.

Ohio is not the first state where drillers are starting to look beyond the Utica and Marcellus shales, said Dr. Robert Chase, professor and chair of the Department of Petroleum Engineering and Geology at Marietta College.

Drillers in Pennsylvania and Kentucky have both started drilling into shallower sandstones, he said.

"From what I can see, there’s no real risk," he said. "The potential impacts for drillers and for landowners could be really big."

Drilling horizontal wells in the Clinton sandstone could boost production and provide bigger payments for landowners and drillers, he said.

Landowners could see significantly more revenue from increased production, if the new horizontal wells are successful, he said.

Going after the gas and liquids in the Clinton sandstone will be challenging, Chase said.

A great many wells have been drilled into that formation over the years, and the key will be find localized pockets that not been tapped in the past, he said.

The companies trying to drill in the Clinton sandstone will likely do extensive research to find areas that have been only lightly drilled, he said.

For that reason, the Clinton drilling will likely be very localized, he said.

The drillers will likely need smaller leased tracts to drill such wells, perhaps 80 to 120 acres per well, depending on the length of the laterals, Chase said.

Hydraulically fracturing or fracking the Clinton sandstone would require far less water than is needed to frack the Utica shale, Bennett said.

Water, sand and certain chemicals are pumped into the underground wells under pressure to crack the rock and enable drillers to reach the natural gas and liquids

Chase said he sees no major risk to ground water with the wells being designed with cement and steel casings that would boost water protection.

Others are less sure. Paul Feezel of the Carroll Concerned Citizens in Carroll County said he is worried that faults in the underground rocks and even old wells in the Clinton might provide pathways for drilling contaminants to reach ground water.

The new sandstone wells are significantly closer to the ground water than the deeper Utica shale wells in eastern Ohio, he said.

The potential threat to ground water from the new wells is "a slippery slope…and a concern, in my mind," Feezel said.

Ohio has about 63,000 producing wells, more than half tapping into the Clinton sandstone. Three fourths of the oil and gas produced in Ohio from 1985-2009 came from Clinton sandstone wells, according to Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

The Clinton sandstone has been extensively drilled at least three times in Ohio, most recently in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Permalink Reply by Barry D on September 2, 2014 at 5:35am

Mike,

Very informative.

I'm sure many of us look forward to the reporting of the results, and hope they are positive.

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Permalink Reply by James Vanderink on September 2, 2014 at 5:58am

Same direction Kathi

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