ELLSWORTH, Ohio – Eye-popping oil production, along with an increase in leasing activity and permits for new horizontal wells last year, signal the start of a new phase of exploration in the Mahoning Valley’s Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation, analysts say.
Moreover, investment in this section of the Utica/Point Pleasant is shifting northward, opening opportunities in areas long dismissed as unprofitable.
“We’re getting a lot of calls from landowners trying to lease or buy minerals,” says Nils Johnson, partner at the law firm of Johnson & Johnson, Canfield. The firm often negotiates deals between property owners and oil and gas companies seeking to invest or build enough acreage in lease positions that could open up oil and gas drilling opportunities. “It’s a tricky business.”
Rebirth of Northern Utica
Leasing activity is on the rise once again in this portion of the Utica/Point Pleasant, Johnson says. Over the last 15 years, energy companies have concentrated their investments mostly in the southeastern portion of the state, as early wells drilled in the northern tier of the play – Mahoning and Trumbull counties specifically – yielded production results that the industry deemed anemic at best. Within several years, drilling across Mahoning and Trumbull counties ground to a halt, and these positions were abandoned.
This perception has now turned on its head, as oil production from young wells in western Columbiana County – and more recently, southwestern Mahoning County – have triggered a renaissance in this section of the Utica/Point Pleasant.
“It started off in western Columbiana County two years ago,” Johnson says. Then, leasing bonuses were averaging approximately $2,000 per acre – far less than the hefty payouts of $6,000 or more that oil and gas companies were willing to fork over to secure leaseholds in this region 15 years ago. However, surprising oil production beginning in 2023 from wells then owned by EAP Ohio – an affiliate of Houston-based Encino Energy – piqued the interest of the industry and initiated a new phase of the play. During the first quarter of 2023, four EAP wells in Hanover Township yielded a total of more than 228,000 barrels of oil. The find kick-started additional attention on this part of the Utica.
Johnson says renewed interest led to a lease deal for a landowner group with Ironhead Resources, which took a nonoperating position on a combined 5,300 acres in western Columbiana County across Knox and West townships.
“We did much better for the landowners than what was being offered at the time,” Johnson says, declining to be specific on leasehold values because of confidentiality agreements. “They wanted to make an investment.”
Furthermore, property owners whose land was leased more than a decade ago – but not developed or renewed – are likely free to negotiate new deals since most of the original leases have expired, Johnson says. On average, these leases cover five years with an option to renew for another five years.
Indeed, two of the most active energy companies in Columbiana County – EAP (now owned by Houston-based EOG Resources) and Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Co. – have aggressively pursued lease activity in the region.
According to data from the Columbiana County Recorder’s office, Hilcorp secured 212 oil and gas leases last year, mostly in Fairfield and Elk Run townships. Hilcorp’s assets in the county have proven to be highly productive gas wells but have not yielded any oil.
EAP negotiated 187 leases last year, according to the recorder’s office. These leases are primarily for acreage in Knox and West townships, where EAP has drilled high-performing oil wells.
During the second quarter of 2025, for example, EAP’s Kitzmiller CL 10H well in Knox Township yielded 162,621 barrels of oil over a 91-day period, a remarkable feat for a well this far north. That well reported the third-highest oil volumes in the state during that period, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
North to Mahoning
Buoyed by oil production in western Columbiana County, leasing activity has now extended into southwestern Mahoning County, a section of the Utica/Point Pleasant that energy companies wrote off more than 10 years ago because of poor well results.
EAP in 2025 secured 22 leaseholds in Ellsworth Township, which paved the way for the first horizontal well drilled in Mahoning County in more than a decade. That well, the Wehr Spring Valley Farm unit at the corner of state Route 45 and Leffingwell Road, is now in production and yielded 40,484 barrels of oil over 84 days during the third quarter of 2025 – record volume for any well drilled in Mahoning County.
These numbers stand in stark contrast to production results from nearby wells that were drilled during the first years of the Utica program, Johnson says. He points to the Hendricks Mahn2 well in Ellsworth Township – drilled by CNX Gas Co. in 2014 – which has historically failed to produce any meaningful levels of oil or gas since it was placed into commission. During the third quarter of 2025, the well yielded just 351 barrels of oil.
“The interesting thing is that the Wehr well has now offset the Hendricks well,” Johnson says.
That’s because in the 12 years between commissioning the Hendricks and Wehr wells, energy companies have become more sophisticated in developing different formulas and fluids used in the hydraulic fracking process, which uses sand to prop open fissures in the tightly packed shale, Johnson says. The open fissures then release long trapped hydrocarbons. Moreover, exploration and production companies have perfected technology that allows them to drill much longer laterals, maximizing production from a single well.
What is promising about the Wehr well is that it produced a significant amount of oil despite being limited by a comparatively short lateral, Johnson says. “That was 6,000 feet long,” he says. “Some of these laterals are going 20,000 feet.”
‘New Era’ of Development
Johnson says leasing interest in western Mahoning County is likely to accelerate in the future and expand northward. “It’s already here,” he says of investment in Mahoning County. “I see it moving into southern Trumbull County.”
The state of the northern Utica/Point Pleasant is a far cry from 2010, when major energy companies swarmed across eastern Ohio seeking to lock up as many lease positions as they could. Leading the way was Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City – among the first to recognize the enormous reserves of natural gas and oil trapped in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation.
Others soon followed, locking up millions of acres in leases that stretched from Belmont and Noble counties in the southeastern portion of the state to Trumbull County in the north. However, most of the interest shifted south, where wells gushed large volumes of oil and natural gas. Assets in the northern portion of the Utica – Mahoning and Trumbull counties in particular – were all but abandoned because of underperforming wells. Oil giant BP, for example, completely walked away from its position in Trumbull County in 2015 after its wells failed to impress.
Energy companies are now taking another look. An investor map posted on EOG Resources’ website, for example, shows the volatile oil window angling northeast through western Columbiana and Mahoning counties and into the heart of Trumbull County, indicating the potential for future oil exploration there.
“Recent surges in drilling permits and production clearly reflect a new era of development in the Utica – a Utica 2.0, so to speak – driven primarily by oil production,” says Jackie Stewart, managing partner of the consulting division at McKinley Strategies.
Stewart, a former vice president for external affairs and spokesperson for Encino Energy, serves as a consultant for primarily McKinley’s energy clients.
Oil production – especially in Columbiana County – has skyrocketed over the past two years, Stewart says. The results have been transformative, she notes, as the industry is now closely paying attention to a region that was years earlier written off as nonproductive and unprofitable.
In 2024, horizontal wells in Columbiana County produced more than 1.5 million barrels of oil, according to data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The most recent data shows that production through the first nine months of 2025 stands at 1.12 million barrels.
“The Mahoning Valley was, without a doubt, one of the biggest highlights of this story in 2025,” Stewart says. “New wells brought online are now posting record production, and areas that were once abandoned or considered uneconomic are now competing directly with wells in Texas.”
These assets helped convince EOG Resources to acquire EAP Ohio’s parent – Encino Acquisition Partners – for $5.6 billion in a deal that closed during the summer of 2025.
“It’s huge. It’s changed everything,” Stewart says. The acquisition validates the Utica’s potential, she says, and the scope of the EOG deal is unlike any seen in Ohio. “There has never been a major oil producer in this state that has shown this level of interest and investment. Encino definitely cracked the code in the Utica, but it’s going to be others that really take it to the next level and help scale development across the basin.”
Stewart reports there are approximately 14 rigs currently operating across eastern Ohio’s Utica – more activity than in recent years. Permits to either drill new wells or deepen existing wells also increased in 2025 compared to the previous year.
Energy companies – in this case, EAP Ohio and Hilcorp Energy Co. – operating in Columbiana County in 2025 were awarded a total of 22 permits to either drill new wells or deepen existing wells. This compared to four issued in 2024.
However, drilling programs are affected by commodity prices. With the price of crude now hovering around the break-even point of $60 per barrel, it’s unclear whether permit activity and rig counts will remain elevated through 2026.
The same metrics apply to natural gas exploration, Stewart says. “Henry Hub prices are in a tough spot today, largely due to the mild weather that has temporarily reduced demand,” she says. Also, the Appalachian Basin lacks adequate pipeline infrastructure that is needed to ship gas to other markets.
“Longer term, the outlook on natural gas remains bullish,” Stewart says, citing the potential for the development of new natural gas-fired electrical generation plants to power data centers and international demand for liquified natural gas, or LNG, products.
“Producers that have their balance sheets in order, disciplined cost structures, and smart risk management in place are best positioned to weather commodity price cycles,” Stewart says. “We’ll see what happens, but the activity level speaks for itself – at least for now.”
Pictured at top: The Wehr Spring Valley Farm well in Ellsworth Township is producing record volumes of oil, signaling renewed exploration interest in the northern Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation.
