Utica shale may hold 20 times more natural gas than previously thought
University researchers and government agencies are pumping up the Utica shale play.
It turns out that the natural-gas heavy underground formation that’s led to millions of dollars in investment in eastern Ohio probably holds more gas than initially estimated.
“(The Utica) is much larger than original estimates, and its size and potential recoverable resources are comparable to the Marcellus play, the largest shale oil and gas play in the U.S. and the second-largest in the world,” according to a new study organized by West Virginia University.
The Utica, which is also increasingly being drilled in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, could have recoverable volumes of 782 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and almost 2 billion barrels of oil. That’s about 20 times more than the U.S. Geological Survey’s estimate just three years ago of 38 trillion cubic feet of gas. It also projected 940 million barrels of oil then.
