U.S. Energy Information Administration

U.S. regular retail gasoline prices averaged $2.43 per gallon (gal) in 2015, 93 cents/gal (28%) less than in 2014 and the lowest annual average price since 2009. Lower crude oil prices in 2015 were the main cause for lower gasoline prices. In 6 of the 10 cities for which EIA collects weekly retail price data, gasoline prices did not exceed $3.00/gal.

OCG.com
Kinder Morgan, the nation's largest energy infrastructure company, already has a major presence in Ohio that includes a terminal location in Cincinnati and the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system, which enters the state through Scioto County and exits from Columbiana County. That presence will become even greater with the addition of the Utopia East Pipeline, a new system that will be about 240 miles long and will stretch from southeast Ohio to northwest Ohio. The proposed pipeline will transport an ethane-propane mix.

Energy Market Upside: Range Resources Exploiting America's Largest Shale Gas Play
OilandGas360.com
Range Resources Corporation is a low-cost producer focused on the Marcellus/Utica in the northeast United States. Range and its Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Ventura, are generally regarded as the founders of the Marcellus Shale play and used their early entry and expertise in the region to fuel America's natural gas revolution. Many other Appalachia players have entered the fold since RRC's discovery, but the Fort Worth-based company remains a key figure in the United States' largest gas field.

PetroGlobalNews.com 

While the Bakken shale play soaks up most of the media limelight, the Marcellus and Utica plays have been the true driving forces behind U.S. shale growth. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, thanks to technical improvements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing the Marcellus and Utica regions have accounted for 85 percent of natural gas production growth since 2012.

Eclipse Resources Fourth Quarter 2015 Operational Update and Conference Participation
Boereport.com
The Company is pleased to announce that it placed all seven of its Fuchs/Dietrich wells in the Utica Shale Dry Gas East area into sales during the fourth quarter of 2015. These seven wells were drilled with lateral lengths ranging from approximately 7,450 feet to 10,520 feet (average lateral length of approximately 8,800 feet) and were completed using what the Company currently believes to be an "optimized" frack design. The wells have been placed into sales and were produced at the Company's Type Well target rate with initial casing pressures of 7,500-8,000 psi.

'Brutal' times for shale industry likely will continue in 2016
Crainscleveland.com
Ohio's Utica shale play had a tough year in 2015, as low oil and gas prices forced drillers to cut back their operations and the number of working rigs in the state plummeted. It's a slowdown that could last well into this year, if not longer. But with three years of drilling under their belts, leaders of the oil and gas industry say they've learned enough about Ohio's shale play to know it will be profitable even when other shale plays are not, and drilling here eventually will gain pace again.

U.S. Energy Information Administration

Utica Shale production is expected to grow from December to January, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It says natural gas production will likely grow by 127 million cubic feet per day and oil production will likely grow by 5,000 barrels of oil per day. Those totals are for new Utica wells. Production will dip for Ohio's legacy wells.

Magnum Hunter files for bankruptcy as shale bust continues
Star-Telegram.com
Magnum Hunter Resources, an Irving-based oil and gas explorer once heady with spending amid the U.S. shale boom, filed for bankruptcy in Delaware as its heavy debt load was exacerbated by the glut in cheap energy. The company said that it has the support of a majority of its lenders for a turnaround plan. Holders of 75 percent of the company's debt have agreed to support the restructuring, which calls for a $200 million loan to keep Magnum Hunter operating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to a statement.

Ohio's oil and gas industry is ready to boom once prices improve, analyst says
Cleveland.com
While slumping energy prices are devastating Pennsylvania's once-booming shale drilling industry, Ohio's nascent fracking industry could be primed to take off once the market improves, according to a prominent industry analyst. Oil and gas drilling activity this year has fallen off across the Marcellus and Utica shale formations that lie underneath eastern Ohio and much of Pennsylvania, according to DrillingInfo, a Texas-based energy analytics firm. That has led to economic problems in Pennsylvania. But in Ohio, which last year produced about one-eighth as much natural gas as the Keystone State, there haven't been nearly as many jobs to lose.

Production continues to grow from gas-oil wells in Ohio's Utica Shale
Ohio.com 
Commodity prices may be low and pipelines may be needed, but Ohio's Utica Shale continues to set production records, according to a new report released by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Oil production in Ohio increased by 111 percent, from 7.4 million barrels for the first nine months of 2014 to 15.7 million barrels for the same time period this year, ODNR said. Natural gas production also jumped by 126 percent, from 287 billion cubic feet of natural gas for the first nine months in 2014 to 651 billion cubic feet for the first nine months of 2015, the state said.

Hellenicshippingnews.com
For proof that the U.S. is about to become a net exporter of natural gas, take a look at what's happening in the Northeast. The region extending from Maine to New Jersey and Pennsylvania has been a net-exporter of gas at times this year, pushing average pipeline imports from other parts of the U.S. and Canada to just 0.3 billion cubic feet a day in 2015, according to data provider PointLogic Energy. That would be the smallest amount for any year in figures going back to 2007, if the trend persists. The data underscore how the flood of gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in the eastern U.S. is transforming the country's role in the global market. Net U.S. gas imports have slumped to the lowest in decades, and Cheniere Energy Inc. is preparing to ship the first cargoes of liquefied natural gas from the lower 48 states early next year.

Bloomberg.com
In an instant, Chesapeake Energy Corp. will erase the equivalent of 1.1 billion barrels of oil from its books. Across the American shale patch, companies are being forced to square their reported oil reserves with hard economic reality. After lobbying for rules that let them claim their vast underground potential at the start of the boom, they must now acknowledge what their investors already know: many prospective wells would lose money with oil hovering below $40 a barrel.