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Enervest aiming to unlock Utica’s oil window with Nettle 3H probe

By 26 September 2014 00:00 GMT
Enervest has spudded a closely-watched well in Ohio in the US that could help unlock the volatile oil window of the Utica shale play, an area that has taken on almost mythical stature due to its high potential and frustrating results, writes Noah Brenner.
The US independent planned to spud its first operated oil window test — the Nettle 3H — in Tuscarawas County, Ohio on 20 September, chief operating officer Mark Houser told Upstream on the sidelines of the DUG Eagle Ford conference in San Antonio.

“We are going to use some new frac designs on it,” Houser said. “We’re not going to talk much about it until a long time from now hopefully.”

The well location was originally permitted to be operated by Enervest’s joint venture partner Chesapeake Energy before being amended earlier this summer.

A “bunch” of other Utica operators have all taken a stake in the well, Houser said.

The arrangement gives Enervest a deep pool of technical expertise to draw upon and provides those other operators with the chance to see the geological and production data to inform their own appraisal plans.

Enervest has already permitted its second oil-window test, the Nettle 5H, nearby.

Operators know that a portion of the Utica shale holds significant amounts of oil but efforts to produce the volatile oil window, which has proven to be the most prolific portion of plays like the Eagle Ford shale, have been disappointing.

Enervest, which holds wide swaths of acreage in eastern Ohio both within its joint venture area and outside of it, had committed to bring in additional partners and expertise to prove up the volatile oil window over the next couple years.

The Parker 3H, drilled by Chesapeake Energy on the border between Tuscarawas and Guernsey counties, was seen as one of the first commercial wells drilled in the zone when it flowed at more than 500 barrels per day of oil.

Chesapeake has indicated that it made changes to the way it fractured and completed the well but has given few details.

The US shale giant plans to drill another four wells testing the volatile oil window in the first quarter of 2015, Houser said.