BY ROBERT L. BAKER
Carrizo Oil & Gas operates locally from a base on Rt. 706, just west of Montrose.
The vice president of land for Carrizo Oil & Gas told a packed Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce luncheon his company was committed to the Marcellus in the region and expected to have five pads fully developed in the county by September 2012.
RICHARD SMITH
Richard Smith who works out of the company headquarters in Houston, Texas, acknowledged that a well drilled last year in Noxen was “pretty much dry, and the gas just wasn’t there.”
“You’re on the right side of the county here, however” he told a crowd at the Fireplace Restaurant, west of Tunkhannock, where two wells have been drilled, but not yet fracked, within a couple of miles of the luncheon.
Smith said Carrizo has a leasehold on 4,400 acres in Wyoming County, and 8,200 acres in Susquehanna County as well as 90,000 acres in central Pennsylvania and 130,000 acres in West Virginia.
When complete in Wyoming County, Smith said Carrizo expects to havedrilled approximately 30 horizontal wells, some with laterals on the order of 7,000 feet.
He added that Carrizo also had 4,000 acres in Sullivan County and would probably begin drilling there by the fourth quarter of this year.
He said the company literally got its feet wet drilling in the Barnett Shale in the Arlington, Texas, area where it has 260 wells and proved to the industry what can happen in a surface-restricted (or highly populated) area.
Smith shared that the proposed Laser pipeline starting in Susquehanna County would be taking all of Carrizo’s gas, and he expects that pipeline to be in place by July in Susquehanna County and November or December in Wyoming County.
He shared industry statistics from Bradford County that showed a distinct impact between drilling activity and increased other kinds of business activity.
“You’ll be very happy when our wells are producing,” he added.
Smith introduced Jessica Olechna, who is manager of Carrizo’s Montrose office, which is just off Rt. 706, west of the borough, and said the company also had an office in Clearfield.
Asked about the potential workforce Carrizo would bring to the region, Smith said it was too early to tell. “There’s never going to be a large full-time presence of personnel, but we employ a lot of subcontractors.”
Chamber executive director Maureen Dispenza said the Wednesday luncheon was the fourth in a series that so far has involved Williams, Cabot and Chesapeake. The series will resume in September.
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