Shell Gas Discovery in Utica Expands Sweet Spot

Shell Sept. 3 said new discovery wells in the Utica formation in Tioga County, Pa. extend the sweet spot beyond southeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania, where previous discoveries have been located, and into an area where Shell holds a major leasehold position of about 430,000 acres.

The Gee well was drilled more than 100 miles to the northeast of the nearest Utica horizontal producer and had an initial flowback rate of 11.2 MMcfd. Gee has been in production for nearly a year. Shell began production of a second well, Neal, in February, with observed peak flowback rates of 26.5 MMcfd.

The wells were drilled to a total measured depth of about 14,500 and 15,500 feet with lateral lengths of 3100 feet at Gee and 4200 feet at Neal, respectively. Shell comments that the results are comparable to the best publicly announced so far in the emerging southeast Ohio Utica play. The company is awaiting results from four additional Utica wells drilled in Tioga County, and anticipates those wells will produce later this year.

“This successful discovery is the result of solid technical work in our onshore business,” said Marvin Odum, Shell’s Americas upstream director. “Last year, we refocused our resources plays strategy to select fewer plays with specific scale and economic characteristics to best suit our portfolio. The Appalachian Basin is one of those areas, and these two high-pressure wells both exhibit exceptional reservoir quality.”