ELLSWORTH, Ohio – A horizontal well drilled earlier this year by EAP Ohio in Ellsworth Township has set a record for oil production from a single unit over a three-month period in Mahoning County, indicating the oil play within the Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation is expanding north. 

According to the most recent production records from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Oil and Gas Division, EAP – formerly a subsidiary of Encino Acquisition Partners – reported that its Wehr Valley Spring Farm well at the corner of Leffingwell Road and state Route 45 in Ellsworth yielded 40,489 barrels of oil over 84 days during the third quarter of 2025.

While production from the Wehr Valley well is still far less than other major oil finds across the state – a well in Jefferson County, for example, produced nearly 138,300 barrels during the quarter – the results are significant for Mahoning County.

That’s because horizontal wells here have never yielded large quantities of oil, records show. The most oil retrieved from a single well over the past five years before now was from another Ellsworth Township unit that produced just 1,027 barrels over a 91-day period during the second quarter of 2021.

Of the 12 other wells actively producing in Mahoning County, just four yielded any oil during the third quarter of 2025. Collectively, those four wells produced just 809 barrels. 

When adding the Wehr Valley Farm well, total oil production in the county soared to 41,298 barrels during the third quarter, compared with just 1,094 barrels produced the previous quarter.

In August, Houston-based EOG Resources announced that it had completed its acquisition of Encino Acquisition Partners for $5.6 billion, which includes EAP Ohio’s position in the Utica/Point Pleasant formation.  

The Wehr Valley Spring Farm well sits just north of the Columbiana County border, where EAP has had success in tapping the oil window over the past three years.

During the third quarter, Columbiana County’s 187 wells yielded a total of 317,703 barrels of oil, driven mostly by two wells at EAP’s Kitzmiller pad in Knox Township. The Kitzmiller 10H, for example, registered as the 25th most productive oil well in the state for the period, yielding 84,857 barrels over 92 days. During the second quarter, the 10H well ranked third in the state, producing 162,621 barrels over 91 days.

A second well at the pad produced another 71,219 barrels during the third quarter, according to ODNR.

Oil production overall in Columbiana County was down 33% compared with the previous quarter, a period that marked record oil volumes of 478,811 barrels, according to ODNR data. 

Conversely, Trumbull County produced little oil during the period. The handful of wells there together yielded just 164 barrels.

Still, combined oil production across the state improved compared with the two previous quarters, ODNR records show. During the third quarter, total oil production in Ohio reached 13.2 million barrels, while oil volumes reached 11.92 million barrels during the second quarter and 11 million barrels during the first quarter of this year.

Natural Gas Production on the Rise

Meanwhile, total natural dry and wet gas output increased from Ohio’s wells, ODNR data show. During the third quarter, wells across the Buckeye State yielded a total of 536.885 billion cubic feet of natural gas, compared with 497.3 billion cubic feet during the second quarter and 489.8 billion cubic feet of gas in the first quarter of 2025. 

Columbiana County’s wells produced 20.1 billion cubic feet during the third quarter, records show, a decrease of 10.2% compared with the second quarter of this year. EAP’s Kitzmiller 10H proved the single most-productive gas well in the county, yielding 740 billion cubic feet.

The most productive natural gas producing well in the state during the third quarter was Ascent Resource’s Carvat Coal well in Harrison County, records show. That well yielded 5.2 billion cubic feet of gas over 92 days.

Pictured at top: A well drilled earlier this year by Encino Energy in Mahoning County is showing signs of substantial oil production.