ELMIRA – County Executive Tom Santulli is confident New York State will approve horizontal drilling, which will bring more jobs to the Big Flats location.
Talisman Energy will begin transferring about 15 jobs from its big flats headquarters to Warrendale, Pennsylvania in the next couple of months.
That location will become the company's new US Marcellus Shale Headquarters.
Talisman, formerly known as Fortuna here in the Southern Tier, announced the plan back in October.
Santulli says Talisman is just doing what any business would do.
He’s referring to the fact that Pennsylvania is vigorously pursuing gas-drilling opportunities.
But talisman officials did assure him, once the New York Department of Environmental Conservation approves natural gas drilling, jobs will return to the area. He said, “frankly we've lost a lot of jobs to the state of Pennsylvania that would've been here initially because we've lagged so far behind in getting this approval done.”
Mark Scheuerman of Talisman Energy says the move to the Pittsburgh area made sense, because of its central location to wells in the Marcellus Shale.
He says other companies are also moving there.
The office in Big Flats will not shut down and still have around 50 to 60 employees.
Scheurman also said that number is sure to go up, if the opportunity for drilling into the Marcellus becomes reality in New York. 
