Drillers in Ohio’s Utica shale are increasingly interested in what’s been called the volatile oil window.
EV Energy Partners on Monday said it expects to participate financially in at least eight to 10 wells in the volatile oil window in 2014.
It says it intends to drill at least two volatile oil wells later this year, along with privately held EnerVest Ltd., its parent company.
Efforts to tap that oil in eastern Ohio have not been successful but new plans are being developed.
Most Ohio drilling has been to the east in an area generally called the wet gas window because drillers have been able to get natural gas, condensate or oil and natural gas liquids including ethane, butane and propane.
The volatile oil window covers all or parts of Portage, Stark, Trumbull, Tuscarawas, Holmes, Coshocton, Guernsey, Muskingum, Perry, Morgan, Athens, Vinton and Hocking counties.
Two of those volatile oil wells have been drilled, with one already in production, said company executive chairman John Walker in a conference call with financial analysts.
One was drilled with Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. and the other with Texas-based Halcon Resources.
The Chesapeake well will be turned on this summer and the Halcon well is already in production. The initial production rates are “encouraging,” said EV Energy Partners president and CEO Mark Houser.
The two wells were backed financially by EnerVest Ltd.
Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. intends to follow up its 2013 volatile oil well with an additional 21 wells to be drilled in 2014, he said.
Houser’s company will be working with EQT Corp. as it proceeds to drill in the oil window, he said. “We will closely monitor their activity and results and apply learnings to our own activity.”
EQT has drilled three wells with limited results in Ohio’s Guernsey County. But it intends to seek the oil with the 21 new wells in that county.
EV Energy Partners still wants to form a joint venture with another company to drill eight to 10 wells in the volatile oil window in Stark and Tuscarawas counties as a pilot project.
Chesapeake, with whom EV Energy Partners has teamed up to drill in 10 counties in eastern Ohio, is also eyeing the oil window, Houser said.
That partnership, which also involves the French company Total, has drilled 371 wells in Carroll and surrounding counties. Another 180 wells are planned in 2014.
EV Energy Partners has about 81,000 acres in the volatile oil window. It has been busy on hydraulic fracturing studies and reservoir stimulus modeling as ways to boost oil production.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or w@thebeaconjournal.com.