Chesapeake Energy Declares Success in Utica Shale

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

Chesa­peake CEO Aubrey McClen­don speaks to the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coalition’s “Shale Gas Insight” conference

The largely unde­vel­oped Utica Shale lies thou­sands of feet below the Mar­cel­lus Shale, and stretches beneath Ken­tucky, up through West Vir­ginia, east­ern Ohio, west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, New York and Canada. Just a day after the Wall Street Jour­nal reported on the Utica Shale’s poten­tial, Chesa­peake Energy announced pre­lim­i­nary results of its Utica Shale devel­op­ment in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Chesa­peake has leased 1.2 mil­lion acres in the Utica Shale play. In a release, Chesa­peake says their 12 hor­i­zon­tal wells have suc­cess­fully pro­duced both dry and wet gas. Wet gas is also known as ethane, and fetches a higher price than dry gas. Chesa­peake is also look­ing to develop oil reserves in the Utica Shale. Shares of Chesa­peake jumped to $29 dol­lars after the announcement.