QUESTION: The Ragersville/Troyer well may be the closest and most recent shale well. Now we hear it may need to be redrilled and/or refractured to become productive. Why? Is it a drilling issue, or finishing issue, or perhaps shale issue? All of the above? Some of above? Or perhaps another issue? Or production issue(s) not known?

The Devon well near Ashland is too shallow at 3400 feet with too little gas pressure to make it productive? Is there a correlation between depth of well and gas pressure needed for production after fracturing?

Interesting this so-called glitch has not dampened the interest of oil/gas companies to lease acreage.

ANSWER: All information from individual wells is kept confidential for a period of time following the drilling. A lot of rumors have been spread, but actual information is hard to come by. I do not know what problem may have occurred on the Troyer well, but because of the highly technical nature of horizontal drilling, many things could have occurred, most of which are correctable, but at much higher costs.

As far as I know, the Ashland County well has not yet been fractured. It is my opinion that the shallow depth of this well could have an effect on its ability to return the frac water and, therefore, its productivity. This is just my opinion, and we will not know for sure until the well is completed and production reported.

During all oil and gas plays, many lease brokerage companies lease in areas surrounding what is currently being drilled. Their hopes are that the play will extend in that area and they can resell the leases at a profit. The only drilling company that I know of leasing in the Knox, Ashland, western Holmes and Western Coshocton County area is Devon. The majority of the other companies leasing in these areas are lease brokers.

QUESTION: I know fracking is a loaded term and you don’t hear much about it being a positive method of extraction. Assuming there is a “safe” and “responsible” fracking method – please briefly describe what that is.

Also, what assurance is there from drilling companies that they will extract or “frack” responsibly? My concern is that health and environment issues will arise and neighbors or new owners, if I should sell, will hold me liable – and not to mention the ethical issues of putting people in harm’s way.

I just can’t believe big drilling or oil companies being concerned with anything but profit. Who is the watchdog here? And, if there is one, who is it and how effective can it be?

ANSWER: Following is a link for some information concerning hydraulic fracturing from the Ohio Department of Mineral Resources Management. The method has been used for approximately 60 years and is very safe. A lot of misinformation is being circulated concerning fracturing. Many so called “environmentalist” would like to see the practice stopped at any cost, and are using scare tactics with no true, scientific evidence to back them up. No industrial process can be totally accident free due to the fact that humans are involved. However, any true problems associated with fracturing have been scientifically studied and dealt with in a responsible manner. http://ohiodnr.com/Portals/11/pdf/fracking-fact-sheet.pdf

The Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management is responsible for the oversight of the oil and gas business in Ohio. Wells are bonded and state inspectors are present for all critical portions of the drilling and completion operation. The Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management is a very good in their oversight of the industry and can stop a company from getting permits to drill wells if it violates the laws. Also, substantial fines can be levied, if needed.

QUESTION: There has been some talk of fracking in Canada using CO2 (and perhaps other gases) in place of water–or maybe to reduce the amount of water needed–in their gas and oil drilling. Is this accurate; and if so, is this technology practical in Ohio, and will it really reduce the amount of water that is removed from our lakes and streams and the amount of waste water that needs to be put into injection wells?

ANSWER FROM DOUG: Hydraulic fracturing using gases has been used for fracturing shale for many years. In addition to carbon dioxide, nitrogen and propane have been and are continuing to be used. All of these work to some extent but do not appear to be as effective as the large water/sand jobs in the deeper shale formations. They are used primarily in areas where the shales are shallow and do not have the reservoir pressure to return the large volumes of water. Although they do save water, so additional problems are associated with them. Both nitrogen and carbon dioxide require the well to be flowed back until the amounts of each are very low. Gas utility companies will not allow gas to be produced into their line with more than a few percent of nitrogen or carbon dioxide. This allows quantities of the gases and methane to be produced into the atmosphere. Since the carbon dioxide and nitrogen are extracted from the air in the first place, there is no net increase in these gases. However, methane, which is a more troublesome greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is released until the gas can be produced. Propane does not have this problem since it can be blended with natural gas and immediately put into a pipeline. However, propane is very dangerous to pump, and therefore, very few companies are currently doing this.

QUESTION: Can you recommend a website that explains how horizontal drilling works? For example, I’d like to know how BP, or whatever company did the drilling, was able to guide their drill bit in the relief well in the Gulf of Mexico disaster. It amazes me that they were able to guide that thing right to the location of the crippled well.

ANSWER: Following is a link from the North Dakota Division of Mineral Resources that is very good at explaining horizontal drilling. https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/newsletter/NL0308/pdfs/Horizontal.pdf

Look before you lease your land for drilling

“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

This quote by James Madison is a great example of how our founding fathers understood that ownership of private property provides the foundation for prosperity and freedom. So they protected property rights – the right to freely purchase, to use, to manage and to dispose of it – through the Constitution with help from the Fifth Amendment. As a result Americans enjoy the privilege of landownership on a level most of this planet’s inhabitants could only dream of.

But what do Constitutional rights about property have to do with activity in Ohio’s Utica Shale? Simply put: if you are a landowner and own mineral rights, then you have some important decisions to make in regard to whether or not to lease your property.

Our founding fathers ensured we had the right to own property; they couldn’t ensure we would use the right wisely or be good stewards of our property. And they certainly couldn’t prevent others from trying to mislead or take advantage of our right.

I support the development of the Utica Shale in Ohio as long as the lease is with a reputable oil and gas company and there are stringent provisions in each lease to protect the land and water. Here’s why: as a nation we must increase our domestic sources of energy. If we don’t our children and future generations will be serving those who do.

There is no silver bullet capable of providing us with the domestic energy this country will need to prosper but there is a silver buckshot. Part of that silver buckshot is the oil and gas contained in the Utica Shale.

Because of the material’s exposure to heat in the Earth’s core, the depth of the Utica Shale decreases as it extends west into Ohio. Toward the Pennsylvania border the shale contains what is referred to as “dry gas” play. To the east of I-77 it turns into “wet gas” play; to the west of I-77 it simply becomes “oil” play. With natural gas prices plummeting from an increase in supply, there has been a shift of interest from the wet gas to the oil. Holmes, Wayne and Coshocton counties fall into the “oil” play category.

Permits had been issued to 51 Utica Shale wells in Ohio as of Dec. 1, 2011 with additional permits filed weekly. Eight wells were being drilled or had already been drilled. Reports of drilled wells by companies such as Chesapeake, LLC are mind blowing. Even if the reports were exaggerated to trump foreign investors, as some local oil and gas producers suspect, the potential amount of oil and gas from these early wells has caught the attention of some major North American companies making them eager to cash in on the play.

Landsmen representing oil and gas companies already have begun to arrive in Holmes, Wayne and Coshocton counties. Their job is simple: pound on as many doors as possible to get landowners to act impulsively, leasing their land for the lowest price possible. Initially the offers they make may sound enticing but the verbiage in such leases will do little to protect the current and future landowners who will be bound to the lease for decades to come.

If you haven’t signed a lease and are contemplating doing so, or even if your property is held by production, I encourage you to join your local landowners association. At the very least, seek professional legal advice before committing to anything.

Bob Hunter, KWLT Trustee

Toxic fluid storage needs closer monitoring

The disposal of toxic liquids safely – isolating them for the long term from our environment – has long been a problem for society. Pumping the fluid through a well bore into a deeply buried, porous rock formation for permanent storage has been one solution commonly used by geologists and engineers for many years.

In most cases the fluid is pumped under great pressure down a steel pipe in an abandoned oil well, forced into the porous formation for storage at depths of thousands of feet. To prevent the fluid from leaking into overlying water-bearing strata and causing pollution, cement is forced between the steel pipe and the sold rock wall creating an effective seal. If done properly this can be a safe, cost-effective solution for permanent storage.

Two classes of failure are associated with this technique of storage. Most commonly, the cement bonding in the well bore fails and toxic fluid can leak upwards to areas of lower pressures, polluting ground water. Disposal wells are monitored by state inspectors to see that they meet safety standards for fluid isolation and any cement failure can quickly be identified and remedied. In rare instances the pressure used to force toxic fluid into the storage layer is excessive and breaks the rock particles apart, destroying the cohesiveness of the layer so overlying strata can shift slightly. The shifting is noticed as local, small earthquakes that are not destructive. Correcting this problem involves the immediate cessation of fluid injection and then perhaps pumping out some of the overpressured liquid for storage elsewhere. This long-used technique of fluid storage should continue to be used but monitored more closely. Other systems of storage are prohibitively expensive and will inevitably increase the cost of oil.

Dr. Samuel Root,
Retired Professor of Geology
The College of Wooster

To Our Members:

The KVLA Board has been working hard on behalf of its members and we would like to convey the following to you:

1.  We all need to be aware that mailings and offers from land agents and outside interests will be increasing from this point on.  As interest in the Utica shale increases, so will the value of our land.  Companies will be looking for us – we will not have to go looking for them.  The main focus for a land agent is to get us to sign a lease ASAP so they can then “flip” the lease – sell it directly to an oil/drilling company – for their own financial gain.  The Board has met with several of these companies and it is now our intention to only speak directly with oil/drilling companies and thereby bypass the middle man, or land agent.  As the leasing heads in our direction, we are being contacted by more landsmen who would like to get “their share” of our lease bonus and royalty money.  In this regard, we must all stay together in order to receive the true market value of our precious land.

2. We all need to be patient.  The Board is in the process of drafting our own lease and getting digital maps of our member acreage in order to present them to the oil/drilling companies when we meet.  In the meantime, it is imperative that every member contact their neighbors to join our group and get all the holes filled in wherever they may be.  We want to present a map that has as much contiguous acreage as possible.

3. The Board plans to utilize the services of an attorney for the following:  (1) Review our lease; and (2) prepare any amendments to the lease, if necessary, when in final negotiations. Other landowner groups we have contacted have negotiated these attorney fees to be paid directly by the oil company. Our strength in number will allow us to negotiate a lease that has the best compensation and protective package for us all.

4. Our landowners’ association is well organized and informed.  This will be very helpful in negotiations.

5. Our website is another place where oil/drilling companies will be able to get more information on our group.

6. If you have any questions, please contact one of the Board members.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding. Please know that the KVLA Board is very diligent about doing the best possible job for all of us – we are ALL in this together.

Remember to be careful about talking with any land agents and please DO NOT sign ANY paperwork without legal representation. Once signed, you will not be able to change anything. We all want what is best for ourselves and our neighbors.

The Board of Trustees of the Killbuck Valley Landowners’ Association

Bob Hunter, President – 330.763.3992
Larry Coldwell, Vice President  - 330.276.4151
Marcella Hawkins, Secretary - 330.465.6987
Casey Wagner, Treasurer  - 330.763.1172
Bill Grassbaugh – 330.377.4176
Curt Mathie  - 330.377.4223
David Noble  – 330.264.8066
Matt Rohr – 330.763.4010
Wes Starker – 330.231.0272
Rick Weatherwax - 330.377.4412
Andy Weaver – 740.824.5577

Dear Landowners,
Recently a company called Avalanche Energy LLC has been sending out mailings to landowners in Holmes and Coshocton Counties offering $250 an acre if you sign and return to them by August 1st. They have included a lease in their packet that has many provisions that are not very landowner friendly. As with any lease make sure you seek legal advise before signing. Also, please check with your neighbors and discuss with them the consequences of signing a lease such as the one Avalanche Energy is now sending throughout our area. I do believe we will be seeing and receiving other leases from outside companies as we head into summer–to put it simply, things are now going to start get interesting in regards to the Utica Shale in our area.