UTOPIA Pipeline Construction Begins, OSU to Study Hole-Digging
Kinder Morgan’s UTOPIA (Utica To Ontario Pipeline Access) pipeline is a 12-inch ethane pipeline that will run ~240 miles and will only be built in Ohio–therefore the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) won’t be involved in permitting the project. In September we noted that Kinder Morgan is still facing opposition from some Ohio landowners (see UTOPIA Pipeline Still Battling OH Landowners with Eminent Domain). Aside from a few holdout landowners, Kinder Morgan will begin building UTOPIA next month, with plans to turn it on in 2018. When Kinder begins to dig trenches next month to lay the pipeline, researchers from Ohio State University will be watching–conducting “research” into “soil disturbances caused by pipelines and its impact on farmland.” Kinder Morgan is helping fund the 3-year project–kicking in $200,000. Forgive us for saying so, but the entire premise sounds kind of dumb. Farmers dig holes and trenches in their fields all the time and nobody “studies” it to see what kind of impacts it may have. You dig a hole (or a trench), you put something in it, you cover it back up with the same dirt you just dug up and then replant grass or crops over top of it. Not a lot of mystery. It’s been going on for millennia…
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We remember watching Marlin Perkins on “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” growing up. For the younger generations, it was a TV program roughly the equivalent of watching today’s Discovery channel. In particular we remember watching a wildebeest being taken down by a pack of jackals. The jackals would watch for an advantage–a wildebeest that was old and slow, or wounded, or maybe too young to keep up with the herd. They would single it out and one after another jump on it to bring it down. That’s the image that floated through our heads as we noticed a sudden surge of law firms filing class action lawsuits against Chesapeake Energy. No, these lawsuits have nothing to do with Chesapeake shorting landowners in their royalty checks–there’s already a bunch of those lawsuits. These lawsuits are new and stem from the recent announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission and even the U.S. Postal Service have launched investigations into Chesapeake (see 
Gas Natural Inc., a local distribution company (LDC), or “gas utility” company has operations in four different states, including Ohio. Gas Natural also owns pipelines and processing facilities. Gas Natural has just sold itself to energy investment firm First Reserve for $139 million…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Shell wants to sell electricity in Ohio; PA’s rig count goes up again; leaked emails shows Hillary knew Russians were backing anti-fracking groups; natgas hits a new 22-month high; what happens when Saudi Arabia quits exporting oil?; and more!