Drilling rig at Hendren Century Farms # 2 petroleum well (north of Johnstown, Ohio, USA) 1

Actively drilling petroleum well in Licking County, Ohio, USA. (October 2016) (site access generously provided by Gary Sitler for geoscience education purposes)

During the late 1800s, Ohio was the # 1 petroleum exporter on Earth. This is definitely not the case anymore! Despite this, Ohio today still has economic concentrations of oil and natural gas.

Ohio has three significant petroleum occurrences:

1) Trenton Limestone (upper Middle Ordovician) of northwestern Ohio.

2) Clinton Sandstone (Lower Silurian) of eastern Ohio.

3) Knox Group (Beekmantown Dolomite-Rose Run Sandstone-Copper Ridge/Trempealeau Dolomite) (Upper Cambrian to ?lowermost Ordovician) in the eastern ~half of Ohio.

Of these three petroleum systems, the Knox Group generally requires the deepest drilling. Most Knox Group drilling in Ohio targets the Rose Run Sandstone, an interbedded quartzose sandstone-dolostone unit of Late Cambrian age.

The well shown above is being actively drilled (as of late October 2016). It was targeting a paleotopographic high at the Knox Unconformity and hoping to encounter petroleum in porous dolostone. During this visit, the rig was drilling at a depth between 3,300 and 3,400 feet below the surface.

Update: as of spring 2017, this well was making 100 to 125 MCF a day (= 100 to 125 thousand cubic feet of natural gas) and 10 barrels of oil per day. The producing horizon is in the Upper Cambrian Copper Ridge Dolomite (also known as the Trempealeau Dolomite). Petroleum is coming from porous dolostones below the Knox Unconformity. The Knox is a megasequence boundary (Sloss sequence boundary) that separates the Sauk Megasequence below from the Tippecanoe Megasequence above.

The following are formation picks for this well (the numbers are from the completion record filed with the Ohio Division of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Resources):

430 feet depth = top of the Berea Sandstone (lowermost Devonian)

1182 feet depth = top of the "Big Lime" (= Devonian and Silurian carbonate succession, including the Delaware Limestone, Columbus Limestone, and Silurian dolostones)

1940 feet depth = top of the "Packer Shell" (= Middle Silurian Dayton Formation equivalent)

3252 feet depth = Trenton Limestone (upper Middle Ordovician, sensu traditio; lower Upper Ordovician, sensu novo)

3790 feet depth = Gull River Limestone (Middle Ordovician)

3830 feet depth = Knox Unconformity with Trempealeau Dolomite below (Upper Cambrian)

According to State of Ohio records, this well has produced the following:

2017 - 38 barrels of oil, 12,660 MCF of natural gas (= thousands of cubic feet of natural gas), 516 barrels of brine (= salt water)

2018 - 59 barrels of oil, 2828 MCF of natural gas, 175 barrels of brine

2019 - 144 MCF of natural gas

2020 - 21 MCF of natural gas, 130 barrels of brine

2021 - no production

Locality: Hendren Century Farms # 2 well (permit # 34089261840000) (2026' SL, 1526' WL, Lot 10, 4th Quarter of Township), north of Johnstown, Hartford Township, northwestern Licking County, Ohio, USA
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See info. at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drilling_rig
and
gis.ohiodnr.gov/MapViewer/WellSummaryCard.asp?api=3408926...

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Taken on: October 30, 2016

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Sets appears in: • Drilling, Drilling Equipment, Wells, Oil Field Equipment, Oil Field History • Ohio Petroleum Geology

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