(Knvoel - May 24, 2013) Next Big Boom Coming Up Bust?
http://why.knovel.com/all-engineering-news/2503-next-big-boom-coming-up-...
The Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania has almost single-handedly turned around the entire market for natural gas in the U.S., while oil exploration in the Bakken formation has sparked a massive economic boom in the state of North Dakota. With these massive success stories highlighting the potential of recent engineering innovations in unconventional oil and gas exploration, companies have been looking around the country for the next formation to strike it rich.
Unfortunately, one of the leading candidates for the past few years - the Utica formation, nestled underneath the Marcellus formation - has returned some disappointing early results, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
No quick success
In late May, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources finally released the first set of numbers about production from the state's new shale developments.
The good news came from the fact that shale oil and gas production in the state doubled from 2011 to 2012. The disappointing news was that this increased production still amounted to no more than 1,750 barrels per day of oil and 35 million cubic feet of natural gas.
Despite the promising assessment from the USGS, oil companies quickly found that they simply did not have the necessary engineering resources to deal with the dense rock formations surrounding the so-called sweet spot for the oil-rich areas of the Utica formation. Instead, according to RBN Energy, many of them chose to turn their attention toward the areas of the play rich in wet-gas - focusing on the more easily produced liquids like NGLs and condensate.
