Marcellus Drilling Active Along Ohio River Including Wetzel County

Magnum Hunter Drilling On Ormet Land, Others Drilling Nearby Areas

From Article by Casey Junkins, The Wheeling Intelligencer, February 3, 2013

HANNIBAL – Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. is busy at work in Monroe County in OHIO, in addition to their activities in Wetzel and Tyler counties in WEST VIRGINIA. This is  highlighted by the natural gas drilling alongside Ohio Route 7 on land owned by Ormet Corp., the site of a large aluminum production facility near New Martinsville.

“We have recently drilled and cased two new Marcellus wells on our Ormet acreage located in Monroe County, adjacent to leases where Utica potential exists,” said James W. Denny III, president of Triad Hunter, the local operating division of Magnum Hunter.

Magnum Hunter officials refer to the company’s Marcellus and Utica operations as the “Magnum Rich” region. The company drills wells locally under the Triad Hunter division. Another of Magnum Hunter’s divisions, Eureka Hunter, has been boring under the Ohio River to connect the Ohio wells to the West Virginia processing plant operated by MarkWest located in Mobley, W.Va.

Three additional Utica/Point Pleasant wells are planned in Monroe County. Production from these Utica wells – along with the 12 “Magnum Rich” Marcellus wells – will be gathered and delivered to the MarkWest processing facility at Mobley.

The Ohio River bore will extend the 20-inch “Pursley Lateral” from Wetzel County into Monroe County near Sardis. The crossing enables Eureka to expand its footprint to include gathering of Utica and Marcellus production in Monroe and Washington counties in Ohio.

“We are very excited to begin accelerating our testing program in the Utica formation located in Ohio. Development of this exciting and highly productive unconventional play could have significant impact to our company,” Denny said. “We are planning to complete these new liquids rich Marcellus wells this summer when Eureka Hunter, our midstream division, has completed the necessary infrastructure,” he added.

Note:  Chesapeake Energy is continuing drilling/fracking operations in Wetzel County, as are Gastar (on the PPG property at Natrium), Stone Energy (near the Lewis Wetzel Park north of New Martinsville), etc.  And, the large natural gas fractionation plant at Natrium is nearing completion by CBI Industries on behalf of Dominion.

Tagged as: drilling, fracking, marcellus shale, Monroe County, OH, Ohio River, pipelines, Tyler County, Utica Shale, Wetzel county, wv