Who We Are

The Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA) is a trade association with over 1,900 members involved in the exploration, production and development of crude oil and natural gas resources within the State of Ohio.

Joining Together

OOGA members are the ultimate upstream segment of the energy industry. Traditionally, all Ohio producers have been “independent” producers – defined as a nonintegrated company which receives nearly all of its revenues from production at the wellhead. Independents are exclusively in the exploration and production (E&P) business.

Independents are not major oil companies. And, unlike the majors, they cannot recover production and regulatory costs by passing those expenses and overhead on to consumers through other operations, such as refining and marketing of petroleum products.

Creating Jobs

Ohio independents provide jobs for nearly 4,623 employees. To put that in perspective, the Ohio coal extraction industry employs about 2,484 people. On a national scale, the number of independents has decreased by 50 percent over the past decade – from over 10,000 to less than 5,000. The number of drilling operators of record has also fallen from over 5,000 to approximately 2,000.

Nationally, the average independent E&P company employs 12 people. Employment in the E&P sector in 2005 averaged 270,200, an increase of 43,000 employees compared to 1999 averages. However, over the past few decades, the American upstream industry has shed 1.1 million jobs. This loss of experienced personnel is a serious issue constraining the industry’s ability to meet incremental demand challenges.

Meeting Our Energy Needs

Independent producers are the people who are developing America’s oil and gas resource base. Independent producers drill 90 percent of domestic oil and natural gas wells, produce 82 percent of America’s natural gas and 68 percent of America’s crude oil – more oil if the survey did not include Alaskan North Slope oil production.