Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. said Friday that a series of its long-awaited wells in the Utica and Marcellus shale plays will begin flowing into sales within the next two months, which the company estimates will net it up to 8,000 boe/d.

Financial analysts have been watching Magnum’s progress on the WVDNR, Stalder and Ormet drilling pads in West Virginia and Ohio after cold weather recently shut-in some production, caused pipeline delays and hampered completions (see Shale Daily, Feb. 24).

Magnum’s announcement on Friday, though, appears to show the company is regaining some of the ground it lost over the winter (see Shale Daily, Dec. 20, 2013), while a number of other wells it is working on in the Appalachian Basin are scheduled for tests this summer.

The latest update is the early culmination of an Appalachian program that kicked into high gear in 2012 when Magnum purchased 51,500 acres in West Virginia and Ohio (see Shale Daily, Oct. 26, 2012). Executives also pledged last year that the company would be a well-oiled machine in terms of bringing wells online in Appalachia, where Magnum has established a core area of operations (see Shale Daily, Nov. 11, 2013; Dec. 12, 2013).

In the next 45 days, Magnum anticipates that eight gross wells, seven of which are net to the company, will begin flowing into sales through its majority-owned Eureka Hunter Pipeline system. Those include three Marcellus wells at its WVDNR pad in Wetzel County, WV; a Utica and Marcellus well at its Stalder pad in Monroe County, OH, and three Marcellus wells nearby in Monroe County at its Ormet pad.

After more than a month of delays, Magnum said last month that its first dry gas Utica Shale well, the Stalder 3UH, tested at a monstrous peak rate of 32 MMcf/d (see Shale Daily, Feb. 14). That well is currently shut in as the Marcellus well on the same pad is being hydraulically fractured.

At its Ormet pad in Ohio, the company’s three Marcellus wells tested at a combined rate of 11.6 MMcf/d of natural gas and 1,788 bbl of condensate. Along with two Utica Shale wells in Washington County, Ohio and another three Marcellus wells in Tyler County, WV, that the company plans to test this summer, Magnum says it will soon drill West Virginia’s first ever Utica shale well, which is also expected to be tested this summer.  

Production results from the latest series of wells are expected to nearly double Magnum’s overall daily volumes.