Mention was made of the Marcellus shale. I live in Ohio, have geology training, and access to the prolific maps and data of the Ohio Geological Survey. Let me go (typically) off topic here for just moment and expand upon the oil shale reserves of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Everyone has heard of the Marcellus, and those of us in the region have already noticed that natural gas prices have declined, from expanded local production out of the Marcellus.
But that's not the story that will eventually emerge. It's the Utica Shale several thousand feet beneath the Marcellus. It extends under much of the three states, and the first commercial wells have been punched into it. The production of three wells of Chesapeake Energy, in the Youngstown area, was recently released. Consider them. One well produced 1500 barrels a day. A second well produced 1600 barrels, and a third produced 3000 barrels a day. Do your own arithmetic to figure out how much Chesapeake will be earning after several hundred such wells are in local production.
Chesapeake Energy has spent (as reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer) $1 billion in the purchase of mineral and drilling rights in Mahoning and adjacent counties. Do you think Chesapeake managers have any doubts about what the Utica will yield in Ohio and adjacent states? That was a billion, not a few millions.
And Ohio EPA just announced their intense study and incipient publication of new frack water rules. Not a drop or molecule of natural gas or liquid hydrocarbons will be extracted from either the Marceluss or the Utica without extensive lateral drilling and subsequent (and frequent) hydrofracking. OEPA is concerned about the release of polluted frackwater into both surface and subterranian water resources. Somehow, Chesapeake, Husky, and the others are going to have to deal with the millions of gallons of frackwater.
In Ohio, drillers have no problem acquiring millions of gallons of frack water. But so far, they have to pay millions to treat and dispose of it. There might be some kind of developing market for any new technology that could address this problem. Frackwater disposal or re-conditioning is the only major problem keeping Ohio's Utica Shale from becoming the next Bakken.
--Falconer66a
