The CSD District 20 report includes Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Maryland's drilling activity amounted to a well testing the Tuscarora Formation (which was dry) in the Mountain Lake Park field and the completion of 4 gas storage wells in the Accident gas storage field. Total new footage drilled was 39,089 ft.

The most active county in Ohio during the year was Muskingum with 195 new wells drilled for petroleum; Tuscarawas County was second with 164 wells, and Guernsey County third with 91 wells. Crude oil production increased more than 1 million bbl from the 1971 production, and natural gas production increased approximately 8 Bcf, setting a new state record for the second year in a row in natural gas production. Total new footage drilled was 5,484,376 ft.

Pennsylvania's drilling activity, based on new wells completed, increased 27%, crude oil production decreased 9%, and natural gas production decreased 3%. As in the past several years most of the deep development drilling was in the Medina (Silurian) gas area of Crawford County. Most of the activity in the shallow gas fields was in Armstrong, Clearfield, Indiana, Jefferson, and Westmoreland Counties with 25, 14, 160, 22, and 18 successful gas wells, respectively, being drilled in the 5 counties. Again Venango and Warren Counties were by far the most active oil areas with 209 and 128 successful oil wells respectively being drilled. Seismic activity again increased greatly to an all time high of 263 crew-weeks logged, an increase of 79% over 1971. The footage drilled in new and deepened wells was 1,880,956 ft, and in gas storage wells was 41,363 ft, for a total of 1,922,319 ft.

In Virginia the number of wells drilled in the oil and gas productive counties of southwestern Virginia increased from 13 wells in 1971 to 22 wells in 1972. Crude oil production during 1972 declined to 97 bbl from a single well. Natural gas production increased 6% to 2,801,913 Mcf. The total new footage drilled was 106,364 up 67% over 1971.

In West Virginia there was a significant decline (13.1%) in total well completions from 1971 to 1972. More significant was the decrease (44.2%) in the number of deep well completions in a year when a new era in deep drilling hopefully would begin. In spite of these decreases exploratory drilling increased 21.7%. For the first time in recent years the Newburg was not the main deep drilling target as Newburg completions decreased 71.3% from the previous year. The Big Injun, Benson, and Weir-Berea trends were active during 1972. Walton was the most active oil field and Murphy Creek (Freemansburg) was the most active gas field. Oil production declined 10% and gas production declined 13%. Total footage drilled was 2,094,868 ft.