American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015 - 30

IndustryDigest
"The revised resource numbers are
impressive and a little surprising, based
on our Utica estimates of just a year
ago, which were lower," remarks
Douglas Patchen, director of the
consortium. "But this is why we
continued to work on the resource
estimates after the project officially
ended a year ago. The more wells that
are drilled, the more the play area may
expand, and another year of production
from the wells enables researchers to
make better estimates."
Patchen says the project had three
main objectives:
* Assessing the geological
characteristics of Utica and equivalent
rocks in the Northern Appalachian
Basin;
* Defining Utica oil and gas
fairways; and
* Providing resource assessments.
Patchen comments that the general
public might be interested only in the
resource numbers, but the research
consortium wanted to undertake a
multidisciplinary, basinwide project at
various scales.
"Our research spanned from
basinwide subsurface correlation and
mapping of potential pay zones to
macroscopic and microscopic
examination of cores and thin sections
of reservoirs, to the nanoscale
development of porosity in organic rich
zones," he details.
In addition to oil and gas resource
estimates, the report presents
comprehensive data on the stratigraphy,
petrology, reservoirs, and areal
distribution of the play. Researchers
confirm they have found:
* The play is actually neither
"Utica" nor "shale," and data point to
an interbedded limestone and organicrich shale interval in the underlying
Point Pleasant formation as the
preferred drilling target.
* The most productive hydrocarbon
source rocks tend to be the Point
Pleasant formation, and the upper and
Logana members of the
Lexington/Trenton formation.
* Original gas in place is
approximately 3.2 quadrillion cubic
feet; and original oil-in-place is 82.9
billion barrels.
* With current technology, the
playwide oil recovery factor is
approximately 3 percent and the gas
recovery factor is 28 percent, in the
30 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

"sweet spots."
"This is a landmark study that
demonstrates the vast potential of the
Utica as a resource to complement-and
go beyond-what the Marcellus has
already proven to be," says Brian
Anderson, director of WVU's Energy
Institute. ❒

U.S. June Oil Output
Tops 9.0 MMbbl/d For
Ninth Straight Month

WASHINGTON-Domestic crude oil
production stayed above 9.0 million
barrels a day in June for the ninth
straight month, the American Petroleum
Institute reports. At nearly 9.8
MMbbl/d, U.S. crude production
increased by 12.5 percent from June
2014, and increased 0.5 percent from
May's revised output of 9.7 MMbbl/d.
This was the highest crude
production level for the month of June
and any other month since April 1971,
as well as the highest year to date in 44
years, API points out.
June's natural gas liquids output also
was higher than prior month, year,
quarter and year-to-date levels. NGL
production in the month averaged
nearly 3.4 MMbbl/d, the highest for the
month on record. June production was
5.6 percent above May's output and
10.3 percent greater than June 2014's
output.
According to Baker-Hughes Inc., the
average number of oil and gas rigs
operating in the United States in June
was 861, a drop of 3.1 percent from the
previous month and 53.7 percent below
the year-ago level. The June count was
the lowest monthly number since
January 2003.
Total U.S. petroleum imports in June
averaged 9.1 MMbbl/d, up by 0.1
percent from the prior month, and 3.3
percent higher than the prior year, API
says. With record U.S. crude production
in June, the institute reports crude oil
imports fell below 7.0 MMbbl/d for the
second time since February 1996. Crude
oil imports were down compared with
the prior year, falling by 1.1 percent, to
just below 7.0 MMbbl/d, API says.
At an average of 9.9 MMbbl/d,
gasoline production in June was the
second-highest level for the month, the
report indicates. API says gasoline
production increased by 0.2 percent

from May, but was down by 0.3 percent
from June 2014's output. For year to
date, gasoline production increased by
1.2 percent compared with the same
period last year, and was the highest
year to date on record.
Refinery gross inputs in June rose by
5.0 percent from last year to a record
high for the month, at nearly 16.9
MMbbl/d, API says. June's refinery
capacity utilization rate averaged above
90.0 percent for the third time this year,
hitting 94.4 percent, the report states.
This was up 2.4 percentage points from
May and 4.1 percentage points from the
same period last year. ❒

Gas Storage Levels
Increase By 303 Bcf

WASHINGTON-Underground
natural gas storage in the United States
stood at 2.880 trillion cubic feet on July
24, 3.0 percent above the five-year
average, according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration. That was
up 303 billion cubic feet from the 2.577
Tcf reported by EIA on June 26, which
was 1.1 percent above the five-year
average. The July 24 storage number
was 586 Bcf more than a year ago,
when storage stood at 2.294 Tcf.
EIA reports gas storage in the
producing region stood at 1.098 Tcf on
July 24, 12.4 percent above the fiveyear average and 71 Bcf more than the
1.027 Tcf reported in storage on June
26, which was 9.6 percent above the
five-year average. The July 24 storage
number for the producing region was up
332 Bcf from a year ago.
In the eastern region, EIA reports,
gas storage on July 24 was 1.318 Tcf,
4.4 percent below the five-year average,
but up 209 Bcf from the 1.109 Tcf
reported in storage on June 26, which
was 8.1 percent below the five-year
average. The July 24 storage number for
the eastern region was up 169 Bcf,
compared with a year earlier.
In the western region, EIA reports,
storage levels on July 24 were 464 Bcf,
5.5 percent above the five-year average
and up 23 Bcf from the 441 Bcf
reported on June 26, which was 8.9
percent above the five-year average.
The July 24 storage number in the
western region was up 85 Bcf from a
year ago. ❒
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015

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