Industry interested in horizontal well results

Karina Cheung, public information officer for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the well was drilled in early May, and “hydraulic stimulation operations,” also known as hydraulic fracturing, took place between June 9 and June 15.

The Wehr Spring Valley Farm well is now producing gas and oil, Cheung said. It is new enough that the latest ODNR oil and gas production report does not list the well’s production numbers. The report is for the first and second quarters of 2025, ending June 30.

In February 2024, Guy Coviello, president and CEO of the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber, said he was excited to see gas and oil production moving north from the Steubenville area into Columbiana County and eventually the rest of the Mahoning Valley.

“We see an increasing amount of opportunity, especially for Columbiana, Mahoning and eventually Trumbull County in the Utica play,” Coviello said.

The Utica play is an area in eastern Ohio containing hydrocarbon-bearing rock formations under ground.

“We have already experienced a lot of long-term success in the supply chain. Then there will be ancillary benefits in attracting companies here because of our abundance of energy, primarily natural gas,” Coviello said.

The Mahoning Valley caught “shale fever” around 2012 when energy company BP leased 100,000 acres in Trumbull County and surrounding areas and drilled several wells. But the results were not what the company hoped for and pulled out of the Utica Shale play in 2014.

But Utica wells in Columbiana County had a good year in 2023, producing its highest number ever, Coviello said.

Coviello could not be reached for this story, but the Youngstown Business Journal reported earlier this year that horizontal wells in Columbiana County produced nearly 1.5 million barrels of oil in 2024, a production record in the northern tier of the Utica / Point Pleasant shale play. It cited data released by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for those numbers.

One high-producing Columbiana County township in 2024 was Butler, which is one township south of Mahoning County’s Goshen Township and two townships south of Ellsworth Township.

Oil production in Mahoning and Trumbull counties in 2024 was negligible, the Business Journal reported.

WEHR SPRING VALLEY FARM

The new Ellsworth Township well is owned by EAP Ohio of Houston, formerly known as Encino Energy. It is called the Wehr Spring Valley Farm well, and it takes in 150.6 acres of land that heads southeast from the well pad, ending just north of West Western Reserve Road and just north of Green Township.

Twenty landowners are listed as royalty interest holders. They have Canfield and Berlin Center addresses on Leffingwell Road, Salem-Warren Road and Western Reserve Road, according to ODNR documents. Their acreage makes up the area where the resources are being mined or will be mined about 15,000 feet below the surface.

The new well is called a horizontal well because even though it is drilled vertically to begin with like traditional wells of the past, it also curves at some point deep underground and then runs horizontally to collect gas and oil along that zone.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is a drilling method used to extract oil or natural gas from deep underground, according to National Geographic.

“In the fracking process, cracks in and below Earth’s surface are opened and widened by injecting water, chemicals and sand at high pressure,” the website states.

MAHONING HORIZONTAL WELLS

There are 12 producing horizontal gas and oil wells in Mahoning County, six in Poland Township, four in Jackson Township and now two in Ellsworth Township, according to ODNR.

The Hilcorp Energy Co. wells in Poland all went into production in 2014, according to ODNR production data. The four in Jackson Township went into production in 2014 and 2015, as did the other Ellsworth well.

The other Ellsworth Township horizontal well is just to the east of the Wehr Spring well and is owned by Northwood Energy Corp of Columbus. It began production in July 2014 and produced 506 barrels of oil and 632 thousand cubic feet of natural gas during the first two quarters of 2025.

COLUMBIANA COUNTY

In Columbiana County, EAP has 87 producing horizontal wells, Hilcorp has 82 producing wells and Geopetro has eight.

ELLSWORTH WELL

EAP Ohio received permission from ODNR to drill its Wehr Spring Valley Farm well May 1, 2025. The well was going to be 15,275 feet deep, according to ODNR documents. EAP Ohio applied for permission to drill the well April 4, 2025.

At the time, the letterhead on the company’s application was for Encino Energy, and the well was being called Encino Energy Wehr Spring Valley Farm.

Among the property owners who are royalty interest holders, the biggest appears to be Glenn L. Wehr Mineral Trust, which has 25 acres. The well pad appears to be on that property. One property is only 0.058 of an acre along Western Reserve Road.

At the May 14, Ellsworth Township trustees meeting, township zoning inspector Wayne Sarna reported that an onsite visit had been made to the Wehr Spring Valley well site. The zoning report stated that Encino Energy would be providing the township with the company’s “registration application” as required under township regulations. Among the documents that were required by the company to provide to the township were copies of all federal and state permits, the meeting minutes state. The company was not going to have to apply for any permits through the township, the minutes state.

At the next month’s meeting, Sarna reported that all of the documentation the township required of Encino had been provided. Township Trustee William Spellman reported at the July meeting that the “local oil well is in production.”

None of the three township trustees responded to an emailed request for comment on the existence of the new well.

GAS AND OIL INDUSTRY

Mike Chadsey, director of external affairs for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, responded to a request for comment on the new Ellsworth well by explaining that the well is now owned by EOG Resources, which acquired EAP / Encino.

When asked what significance anyone might place on the drilling of the new Ellsworth well, he said: “The significance for the Valley and Mahoning County is more about the results of the well than the fact that it was permitted and drilled.”

He added that “there continues to be renewed interest in the northern part of the Utica Shale play which could be encouraging to the greater Mahoning County area.”

He provided a spreadsheet that showed that 30 permits have been issued since 2011 for horizontal wells in Mahoning County. Many of them were never drilled or otherwise are not producing gas and oil, according to the ODNR database.

Hilcorp received permits for 12 wells in Poland Township. Five permits were issued in 2011 in Goshen and Ellsworth Townships and the most recent one was in Milton Township in 2019.

The detail in the ODNR database indicates that the Milton Township well was drilled in 2011 but had almost no production after 2012. There also were permits issued in Green and Beaver townships in 2012.