Utica Shale Could Produce 500,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day

Quoting from the Akron Beacon Journal;
"The Utica shale likely will become the nation’s third largest shale producer of oil and natural gas, including gas liquids, after the Bakken shale in North Dakota and Eagle Ford shale in Texas, said Steve Fillingham, senior associate at Colorado-based Energy Analysts International Inc."
Furthermore Ohio could soon be producing 250,000 barrels of oil per day with an upside potential of 500,000 barrels per day. Even the low side 250,000 would be an awesome leap for Ohio.
As regular readers of this blog and about anyone who lives in Ohio knows that Chesapeake Energy is the largest player in Ohio. It plans to accelerate drilling activity and will increase its operated rig count to 16 by the end of 2012, up from the current level of 12 rigs. Management believes that the Utica Shale has an advantage over the Eagle Ford Shale because the targeted formation is shallower and can be developed at a lower cost.
In other news, Gulfport Energy brought its first horizontal well online and reported a peak production rate of 4,650 BOE per day, (The barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) is a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one barrel of oil) with approximately 50% of the production composed of oil and natural gas liquids. As Joe Biden would say, that's a big F-ing deal and one more reason to be optimistic about Ohio's future.