Shell taps Utica shale in northern Pennsylvania

• Marie Cusick
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  Marie Cusick was the Harrisburg reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

Royal Dutch Shell announced today it has successfully drilled two new discovery gas wells in the Utica shale in Tioga county, signaling  the formation could be bigger than previously thought.
The company has drilling rights to about 430,000 acres in the discovery area and says the wells show the Utica’s “sweet spot” extends into Northern Pennsylvania–  beyond southeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
“This successful discovery is the result of solid technical work in our onshore business” said Shell’s Upstream Americas Director Marvin Odum in a statement. “Last year, we refocused our resources plays strategy to select fewer plays with specific scale and economic characteristics to best suit our portfolio. The Appalachian basin is one of those areas, and these two high-pressure wells both exhibit exceptional reservoir quality.”
Shell says its Gee well has been in production for close to a year. It initially produced 11.2 million cubic feet of gas per day and was drilled more than 100 miles northeast of the nearest horizontal Utica producer. The second well (Neal) went into production last winter and had peak rates of 26.5 million cubic feet of gas per day.
The company is waiting for results from four more Utica wells in Tioga County. It expects they will produce later this year.

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