It was announced recently that the Utica Shale formation in Ohio is not only a source of natural gas, but oil as well. New technological advancements — especially in horizontal drilling techniques and the hydraulic fracturing of the shale (“fracking”) — along with the fact that the oil appears to be of high quality, is bringing drilling to Ohio a lot faster than originally thought.

“Drilling has been taking place in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia for a while now,” says Jeffrey R. Huntsberger, a member of the Business Department and the Real Estate Practice Group at McDonald Hopkins LLC. “Geologists knew there was natural gas in Ohio’s Marcellus formations, but figured Ohio wouldn’t be as rich a source as Pennsylvania. All of that has changed now with the discoveries in the deeper Utica Shale formation. For example, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. recently said that his company expects to invest $10 billion per year in Ohio for the next couple of decades.”