Trenton-Black River

From Wikimarcellus

The Trenton-Black River (TBR for short) is a deep oil and natural gas formation found underneath New York State and stretching to the southwest as far as West Virginia. In New York the TBR has gas-rich pockets that lay under the Utica shale in western New York and parts of the Southern Tier of the State. There is also potential for TBR in Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.

It consists of large pockets of natural gas around 10,000 feet deep; that is approximately two miles below the surface. The gas occurs in long narrow structures. These can be up to 10 miles long and 1/2 mile wide typically in places where the native limestone in the Black River formation has, through faulting, been replaced with hydrothermal dolomite. These structures are readily visible on 2D and 3D seismic. The porosity of these structures is quite variable. On a statistical basis, horizontal drilling can increase the production and reserves of TBR reservoirs by traversing from the lower porosity to the higher porosity sections of the deposit.

Drilling hotspots in the Trenton-Black River include:

• Chemung County, New York
• Steuben County, New York
• Saint Lawrence Lowlands, Quebec, Canada
• Hillsdale County, Michigan (oil)

For example in Steuben County the formation has been under development for many years. The majority of drilling in the deposit is near Corning and Caton, New York.