Williams Says It Has No Utica Drilling Plans

Williams Says It Has No Utica Drilling Plans

Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by Elizabeth Skrapits, The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Beneath the deep-lying Marcellus Shale lies the even deeper Utica Shale, a rock formation that geologists say also has the potential to be rich in natural gas.

However, nobody is tapping into it in Northeastern Pennsylvania just yet, and the Utica remains largely unexplored in the rest of the state.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued Williams Production Appalachia LLC a permit on Feb. 4 to drill deeper for its exploratory well on Route 487 in Sugarloaf Township, Columbia County, past the Benton Foundry.

The permit sparked rumors Williams planned to drill into the Utica Shale, but company spokeswoman Helen Humphreys says they're not true.

"I know that we are not going into the Utica Shale at all," she said.

The plan is to drill down past the Marcellus Shale to tap into the Onondaga limestone formation beneath, then go back up into the Marcellus, Humphreys said. The well has been drilled and the next step will be to hydraulically fracture it, but she said she didn't have a date for when it will be done.

A map issued by DEP on April 5 shows that, like the Marcellus, the Utica Shale runs completely through Northeastern Pennsylvania including Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wyoming and Columbia counties.

Although DEP keeps track of Marcellus Shale drilling permits, the Utica is still pretty much off the radar for the state agency.

"We don't have anything really identifying the formation in our system right now," said Dave English of the DEP Bureau of Oil & Gas Management. "Basically all we're tracking at this point in time is the Marcellus."

There have been permits issued for the Utica Shale -- although not many, and none in Northeastern Pennsylvania -- and there are several other shale formations being tested, English said.

Range Resources, the first company to drill a Marcellus Shale well in Pennsylvania, in 2004, is a pioneer in the state's portion of the Utica Shale as well.

Last year, the company drilled a productive well in Beaver County. Range Resources President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Ventura reported in an April 27 conference call the company is planning a second horizontal well in the Utica Shale later this year.

Copyright (c) 2011, The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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