Rebecca Heimlich, director of Ohio Energy Resource Alliance, and Shawn Bennett of Energy in Depth gave a overview of Ohio's energy and gas industry during the North Central Ohio Conservatives Thursday night at Camden Falls.
Heimlich touched on job creation and taxes of drilling in Ohio.
"Under the current tax structure, taxes that will be paid by the industry, by 2015, the state and local governments are going to get a billion dollars a year," Heimlich said. "That is going to help a lot with the budget."
The very western part of the Utica Shale in the most eastern part of Seneca County and the Marcellus Shale is in eastern Ohio.
"Companies are coming in and hiring Ohioans," she said. "Halliburton is coming into Zanesville, MarkWest, Slumber J is Tuscarawas County, B&M is coming into Youngstown."
Heimlich links oil fracking in Ohio to economic recovery.
"Last year we had improvement in Ohio in our job situation, but for many years our economy was very stagnant.
"Last year we were more prosperous than two-thirds of the country," Heimlich said.
Bennett discussed the science and technology behind oil production.
"Those are great numbers that we are really seeing coming out of some of these wells as we go further west," Bennett said. "This oil is not like your typical tar sands oil, this is sweet crude."
Bennett said when oil producers drill in shale they use a joystick and horizontally maneuver a gyroscope to fracture the wells.
He advised two wells in Guernsey County had produced more than 20,000 barrels of oil in two months and one well in Noble County produced 9,000 barrels of oil in 20 days.
Legislation having an effect on oil production is Senate Bill 315, which requires stricter reporting requirements for companies in the use of chemicals.
