YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – While the conflict with Iran has sent oil prices soaring over the last two months and has exacted pain at the pump for consumers, the international crisis is having a much different impact on those who are locked into lease agreements with energy producers across eastern Ohio’s Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation.
Landowners – especially in Columbiana County, where oil and gas exploration and production in this region is most active – have witnessed their royalty payments skyrocket in recent weeks, the result of higher commodity prices of oil and natural gas caused by supply disruptions from the Middle East.
“The last check I received is four times as high as it was before,” says Cynthia Koonce, who owns a farm near Guilford Lake in Columbiana County. She declined to specify the amount of her payments. “Let’s just say it’s changing with the political winds.”
Koonce, who spoke with The Business Journal during the first week of June, says that she receives two royalty payments per month based on approximately 110 acres that were initially leased to Chesapeake Energy Corp. more than 10 years ago. That company – and its former CEO Aubrey McClendon – led the charge into the Utica/Point Pleasant and quickly entered into lease agreements with landholders across eastern Ohio, including Columbiana County. In 2018, Houston-based Encino Acquisition Partners acquired Chesapeake’s Utica assets, and last year sold its position to EOG Energy Resources, Houston, for $5.6 billion.
The ownership changes had not really impacted Koonce’s royalty checks, she notes. “They were still coming in at the same amount of money each month,” she says.
Then, sometime in mid-May, the payments started to increase, as the effects of the war with Iran began to take hold and the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, Koonce says. “There’s a bigger check than the last one coming in, probably sometime next week,” she says.
Koonce says her land is tied to the Huffman Trust well pad in Butler Township. The two wells at the pad were placed into production in 2014, more than 11 years ago, according to records from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Oil and Gas Division.The well pad, however, hasn’t generally demonstrated an increase in production for oil or natural gas over the past several years. During the first quarter of 2023, for example, the Huffman 1H well produced 613 barrels of oil and 48.8 million cubic feet of gas. That same well during the first three months of 2026 yielded 386 barrels of oil and 37 million cubic feet of gas.
What has changed are commodity prices, Koonce says. “The wells haven’t produced more,” she says. “But there’s more money because the price of gas and oil has gone up.”
In December, the price of Brent crude oil averaged $62.5 per barrel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That figure hit the stratosphere on May 18, when crude prices reached $116.73 per barrel, according to EIA data. Gas prices have increased also, but more modestly by approximately 5% over the last several months.
Record Production
Still, overall oil and gas production from horizontal wells proved strong across Columbiana County during the first quarter of 2026, records show, as oil production soared to record highs, according to the latest production results from ODNR.
Wells in the county’s Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation pumped out 543,905 barrels of oil during the first quarter, the largest output for a single 90-day period in Columbiana County. The production numbers surpass the previous record, which was 478,811 barrels during the second quarter of 2025, according to ODNR.
Records show that oil output for all of Columbiana County’s 95 wells during the previous quarter stood at 307,985 barrels.
Much of the oil production during the first quarter of 2026 came from five wells that were drilled by EOG on the Norris well pad in West Township in December, records show. The Norris CL Wes 10H was the highest producing oil well in the county for the quarter, with 69,651 barrels over a 90-day period, the 28th largest in the state.
Together, the five wells at the Norris pad yielded 338,739 barrels during the first quarter, records show.
Wells in Columbiana County’s Utica also produced a sizable amount of natural gas during the period, ODNR records show. Collectively, these wells yielded 26.4 billion cubic feet of dry and wet gas, compared with 18.9 billion during the fourth quarter of 2025. The largest gas producing well in the county was the Elkrun Johnston 6H, drilled by Hilcorp Energy Co. in Elk Run Township. That well yielded 1.34 billion cubic feet of gas over 90 days, according to ODNR.
Wells in Mahoning County produced a total of 16,979 barrels – all of which came from a single well at EOG’s Wehr Spring Valley Farm in Ellsworth Township. Horizontal wells in Mahoning County produced a total of 280.8 million cubic feet of natural gas.
Trumbull County wells reported zero oil production for the quarter, according to ODNR, while natural gas production stood at 50.6 million cubic feet.
Wells across the state yielded 11.4 million barrels of oil during the first quarter, slightly lower than the 11.9 million barrels produced in the fourth quarter of 2025, records show. Natural gas production was also down compared with the previous quarter.
For the first three months of 2026, Ohio produced 511.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas, compared with 551.1 billion cubic feet during the fourth quarter of 2025, records show.
A Strong 2025
Oil produced from wells in Columbiana County stood at 1.43 million barrels in 2025 – or 3% of total state production – a drop of 4.2% compared with results a year earlier. In 2024, the county’s approximately 200 horizontal wells yielded 1.49 million barrels – or 4.3% of the state’s total production – the first time the county surpassed 1 million barrels for a year.
Much of the attention in eastern Ohio’s Utica was initially focused on geology in the southern and middle tier of the play, as exploration companies tapped vast reservoirs of both natural gas and oil in regions such as Carroll, Guernsey and Harrison counties.
EOG’s Folsam CR well in Carroll County, for example, produced 195,194 barrels of oil during the second quarter of 2025, along with 953.5 million cubic feet of natural gas. In all, wells across Carroll County produced 12.34 million barrels of oil in 2025.
Harrison County produced even more. Last year, wells drilled in that county pumped out more than 13 million barrels of oil.
Wells in Belmont County, on the other hand, produced little oil but yielded nearly 500 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2025, approximately one-quarter of the state’s entire production.
Legacy Wells
Wells in Columbiana County with the strongest output tend to be those drilled more recently, such as those on the Norris pad, ODNR data show. Over time, production from these wells levels off, reducing overall yields.
Gloria Mathews, whose land is leased as part of the Tritten well in Center Township, reports that production at that particular well has never been strong when it comes to oil. According to records, the well was drilled by Chesapeake in February of 2014. Yet during the first quarter of 2026, for example, the well generated just two barrels of oil and pumped out 47 million cubic feet of gas.
Recent international developments have nevertheless boosted her royalty payments, Mathews says. “My check last month was double what it was the month before,” she says. Her brother also reported that his royalty checks have nearly doubled.
Mathews says it’s difficult to determine the price point at which these energy companies sell the oil or gas on the market. “There’s a lag from when it’s actually pulled out of the ground and when they actually sell it,” she says. “They may hold onto it until they think they can get a good price.”
Mathews reports that there’s been little drilling in Center Township since the Utica push of 10 years ago. “There’s no drilling activity in this particular area,” she says. However, Hilcorp Energy Co., another exploration company that has operated in the Utica for more than a decade, has started new wells in Elk Run Township.
Robust oil and gas prices have attracted interest from mineral rights speculators to the area, Mathews observes. One in particular, a 64-acre lot from the Bates Farm, sold at auction May 18 to Bruner Land Co. for $1.2 million – or approximately $18,750 per acre – which included mineral rights, according to an Instagram posting by Kaufman Realty, the auctioneer.
“Maybe they know something we don’t,” Mathews says.
Pictured at top: The Huffman Trust well, drilled more than 11 years ago, is yielding higher royalty payments to landowners because of climbing oil prices.
