Pennsylvania’s Deep Utica Shale is getting a whole new look from Appalachian producers eager to employ advanced drilling technologies to tap the basin’s vast dry gas reserves.
“The Deep Utica will probably be the next up-and-coming dry gas shale play,” Mike Hillebrand, CEO of independent Huntley & Huntley, told Hart Energy’s DUG Appalachia conference on Wednesday.
That sentiment was prevalent at the Pittsburgh forum, where industry executives acknowledged that the most prolific acreage in the vast Marcellus Shale — which overlies the Utica in southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and parts of West Virginia — could soon be tapped out.
“There’s only so much remaining true Tier One acreage, especially in the places that have been most heavily developed. And southwestern PA [Pennsylvania] has been heavily developed,” Greylock Energy CEO Kyle Mork told Energy Intelligence on the conference sidelines.
“So you’re going to have to start to get out of that and think, 'Where are other places we can explore?'” Mork said. “We know there’s a ton of gas in the Utica.”
