BP has announced plans to develop their first well in Ohio’s Utica Shale formation in April, 2013.  As many know, BP picked up 84,000 acres in Trumbull County this past spring following a leasing deal with the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley (ALOV), a group that represents the owners of mineral rights in the area.  BP paid $330 million to ALOV to acquire the leasing rights, and has since been able to acquire additional acreage to give them over 100,000 acres to develop in the region.

Following the acquisition of the leasing rights, BP has since been hard at work doing due diligence to secure that proper mineral rights were in place and none of the lessees had their minerals held by production.  Now that the process has been completed has been done, BP plans to move forward with its development plans.

To prepare for the its activities, BP has opened a new headquarters in North Jackson at the Youngstown Commerce Park.  Their new headquarters will be a 43,000-square-foot space to house both office and warehouse space.  From there, the company will decide the best plan to move forward with their development.  In a press release, Joe Uppercue, BP’s operations manager in Ohio, stated “Now that we have a place we can officially call home, we’re ready to move toward the start up of operations.”

As the Mahoning Valley celebrates the lowest unemployment numbers since 2008, BP’s investment and intention of developing the Utica Shale will continue to help the region keep on their positive upward trend.

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