There’s no question that the Utica horizontal shale wells in Ohio are continuing to impress.  The Ohio Department of Natural Resources issued its fourth quarter report this week, showing a 25 percent increase in production from the previous quarter in 2014. These results are particularly noteworthy when you consider that third quarter posted production was up 49 percent over the second quarter. Even more impressive: this report closes out 2014, as compared to the last two years in Ohio, with production up 200 percent for oil and 350 percent in gas increases. This news is part of a trend that we’ve seen from the 2012 to 2013 production numbers, which showed Ohio’s shale production nearly doubling year-to-year.

Of the 770 Utica shale wells in production, the fourth quarter produced 164.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 3.6 million barrels of oil.  These numbers reflect an increase of 33 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 545,000 barrels of oil from the previous quarter, which as EID reported, was a banner quarter as well. Notably absent from this report was the production of 47 wells, as they are awaiting pipeline infrastructure.

The data also reported the top producing wells in the fourth quarter.  The notable standouts are Eclipse Resources’ Shroyer 2H well in Monroe County, which produced 1.89 billion cubic feet of gas over the third quarter, and Aubrey McClendon’s American Energy Utica’s Shugart Daddy 3H well in Geurnsey County, which can boast of being the largest oil producing well in the state with 56,496 barrels of oil this quarter. These results are consistent with EID’s earlier report, which detailed the Ohio shale counties to watch in 2015.

Of course, with soaring production, Ohio is receiving an economic boost that is driving down the unemployment rates and flooding county and city coffers. Now that’s a quarterly report worth celebrating.