Chesapeake Energy has spent $3.3 billion in Ohio and is expected to keep on spending

Chesapeake Energy now employs 550 Ohioans and its efforts to regain investor confidence and grow its bottom line will include the state's oil-rich Utica Shale where 13 drilling rigs are already at work.

Chesapeake Energy, the state's largest natural gas developer, is pulling oil and natural gas liquids from 32 wells, with another 37 ready to connect when pipelines are completed.

The company, which has nearly closed a forecasted 2013 shortfall of about $16 billion by selling off subsidiaries and some leases to gas and oil fields across the country, can be expected to concentrate its efforts in Ohio's Utica shale and similar shale formations in other states.

That's because wells in parts of Ohio's Utica shale and in other states produce oil and expensive gases such as butane, ethane and propane, which are separated from the less valuable methane and liquefied.The industry calls them natural gas liquids, or NGLs.

Analysts expect the company to concentrate its efforts to produce NGLs and high-grade, easily refinable crude oils in order to increase its bottom line and restore investor confidence in the company.

Chesapeake's share price closed Thursday at $17.58 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 38 cents from Wednesday and from a 52-week low of $13.32, but still below a high for the year of $26.09. In 2008, at the start of the shale gas boom, the company's stock price reached a record high of nearly $66.

Chesapeake, which is the second largest gas producer in the nation behind Exxon Mobil, has the lease drilling rights to 1.3 million acres in Ohio.

This month marks Chesapeake's well-drilling second anniversary in the Buckeye State.

So far, Chesapeake:

•Has drilled 134 wells with 65 others drilled but not completed. The company now has 13 drilling rigs in the state and the rights to 1.3 million acres.

•Has spent $3.3 billion by Sept. 30, which included $2.2 billion in lease payments to landowners.

•Has paid contractors more than $58 million on road improvement projects.

•Now employs 550 Ohio residents, up from 40 in January 2011, annually paying them a total of $32 million.

•Has donated nearly $1 million to charitable groups for Ohio projects.

Oil and gas producers make an annual public report detailing their production levels.

The March 2012 report filed with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources reported 2011 production levels of nine shale wells the company had drilled and was operating.

Those wells had produced a total of 46,000 barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of gas.

The company's latest presentation to investors, released earlier this month, detailed the output of three recently drilled wells, including two in Carroll County and one in Harrison County.

The wells were each producing about 400 barrels of oil per day and up to 5.6 million cubic feet of gas per day.