A recent study shows that investment in Ohio’s shale-energy section continues to increase with $2.9 billion worth of new investments in the industry through the first six months of 2025.

Last year was a record-setting year in Ohio for oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A study published today by Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs shows Ohio’s shale-energy sector has attracted a total of $111.1 billion in investments since 2011.

Commissioned by JobsOhio, the bi-annual Shale Investment Dashboard monitors direct spending across the upstream, midstream and downstream segments of the industry.

“Crossing the $100 billion investment threshold just a few years ago was a landmark, and Ohio’s abundant, low-cost natural gas continues to power our economy forward,” said JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef. “Adding almost $3 billion more in just six months illustrates the confidence global energy and technology leaders have in Ohio’s rich shale resources, workforce, infrastructure and business climate.”

Oil production in Ohio has grown from 4.7 million barrels a year in 2010 to a record-setting 36.6 billion barrels last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Ohio is the largest oil producer east of the Mississippi River and is the 10th-largest oil producing state in the country, according the Energy Information Administration. Texas is the top oil-producing state, producing 2 billion barrels of crude oil annually.

While natural gas production in the state has slowed some from its peak of more than 2.5 billion cubic feet in 2019, the 2023 production of more than 2.1 billion cubic feet is significantly higher than the average of less than 200,000 cubic feet per year from 2010 to 2013, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

The state’s oil and natural gas industries support more than 167,000 jobs, according to the Ohio Natural Energy Institute.

The latest JobsOhio report shows that upstream activities accounted for $2.62 billion of the half-year total, covering drilling, road construction, lease operating expenses, royalties and lease bonuses.

That reflects a nearly $1.1 billion increase from the prior six-month period. Drilling accelerated sharply during that period, with a three-fold increase of 143 newly listed wells.

Midstream developers, meanwhile, invested $236 million to expand gathering, compression and dehydration capacity.

Approximately $106 million went into new trunk and lateral gathering lines that tie fresh wells into the system, while $129.7 million funded horsepower upgrades at key compressor stations, according the Cleveland State report.

Although the tally is approximately 19 percent below the second half of 2023, it represents the second consecutive period above the $200 million mark.

Downstream spending was slower with a $5.8 million investment for a 2.4-megawatt gas-fueled CHP system at Abbott Nutrition near Dayton.

The pipeline of future projects, however, could be busy. More than one gigawatt of natural-gas generation, representing upward of $1 billion in prospective investment, is under review at the Ohio Power Siting Board to serve the state’s artificial intelligence-driven data center capacity.

“The recent wave of high-value mergers and acquisitions in Ohio’s shale industry underscores the basin’s long-term strategic value and reflects continued confidence in the productivity and economic potential of its natural gas and liquids resources,” said Mark Henning, research supervisor at Cleveland State.

Geographically, activity continues to coalesce along the Utica’s
liquids-rich corridor, the report notes.

Belmont County led the total shale-related oil and gas production in billion cubic feet equivalent during this period with 304 billion cubic feet equivalent, more than a quarter of the sum total.

Carroll and Harrison counties together attracted nearly $662 million in drilling capital across 57 new wells, the largest upstream infusion anywhere in the state so far this year.