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ATEX Express Ethane Pipeline Crossing Jefferson County, OH

The previously announced ATEX Express ethane pipeline that will stretch from Houston, PA to the state of Indiana, and from there all the way to the Texas Gulf Coast, is now under construction near Steubenville (Jefferson County), Ohio.

A quick construction update:

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The Permits Keep Coming for New OH Utica Shale Wells

According to the Daily Jeffersonian, Ohio’s Utica Shale drilling shows no signs of diminishing based on the number of new permits issued for horizontal wells in June:

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Hess’ Utica Plans: Operate 3 Rigs, Complete 10 Wells in 2012

Hess will open its Steubenville, Ohio field office next week, a million dollar investment. The grand opening will be a low-key affair with a few area politicians and invited guests. Hess likes to avoid publicity.

Hess Operations Manager Joaquin Martinez, speaking at Tuesday’s Partners in Progress meeting in Steubenville about the grand opening, said that Hess has already spent $1.2 billion on the Utica Shale—$770 million to acquire Marquette Exploration, and $500 million on a joint venture with Consol Energy. He also had this to say about their short-term Utica Shale drilling plans:

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OH Judge Rules in Case on Ethane Pipeline Survey

MDN highlighted a story last week in which Enterprise Products Partners, the company building a new ethane pipeline across Ohio, sued a farmer to gain access to his land in order to survey it to chart a route for the pipeline (see this MDN story). The farmer offered alternative routes to avoid prime hay fields but Enterprise turned him down. A common pleas court judge, on Friday, sided with…

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Ethane Pipeline Company Sues Farmer to Gain Access to Land

Enterprise Products Partners 1,230 mile ethane pipeline from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast, called the ATEX Express (Appalachia to Texas), has hit a snag in Ohio and is suing a farmer who refuses to let them on the property for survey work.

The proposed ATEX Express pipeline includes building 353 miles of new pipeline through Ohio. They’re on a schedule, and they don’t want delays. So when Nancy and David Hyde asked Enterprise to find a different route other than go through David’s best hay field, Enterprise said “no” and is suing them to allow them on the property. As with most lawsuits, this one is complicated.

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Chesapeake Talks About Pipelines for OH Processing Complex

Last week, Chesapeake Energy announced it was partnering with M3 Midstream and EV Energy Partners to build a new $900 million gas processing complex in Ohio’s Harrison and Columbiana counties by the middle of next year (see this MDN story). At an industry conference this week, Chesapeake and its partners spoke about the pipelines they will run to the plants and between the plants:

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OH Village Wants a Fracking Water Treatment Plant

Mingo Junction, a small village along the Ohio River in Jefferson County, Ohio is looking to tap into revenue from the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry spouting up around it. The mayor and village council are trying to locate alternative sources of revenue since the local steel mill closed, leaving the village in a lurch after constructing a new water treatment plant specifically at the mill’s request. Mingo Junction is looking to leverage the one thing it has plenty of—water.

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Eastern Ohio Landowner Group Nears Deal for Marcellus Lease – Terms Include $3,700 per Acre, 17.5% Royalty

A group of landowners with 20,000 acres in Jefferson County and Harrison County, in eastern Ohio, is nearing a lease deal to allow Marcellus Shale drilling. One of the energy companies in the final bidding is XTO Energy (now a division of Exxon Mobil).

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Marcellus Shale Drilling Heats Up in Ohio – “Few Thousand Wells” to be Drilled in Next Several Years

Drillers who have been active in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia are now turning their sites on Eastern Ohio where a slice of the Marcellus Shale formation sits.

"The economies around us are benefiting from drilling. You see it in Pennsylvania, it’s real; you see it in West Virginia, it’s real. Now it’s here, and we have to grasp the opportunity," said state Sen. Wilson, D-Columbiana. "I think this is the biggest opportunity for job growth for eastern Ohio we have seen in a generation."

"This is really an enormous opportunity for us," said Wilson, who represents Belmont, Jefferson, Harrison and Columbiana counties. "I know we could be looking at a few thousand wells being drilled over the next several years – that creates a lot of work and economic activity.*

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Western Reserve Petroleum Leases 4,500 Marcellus Shale Acres in Eastern Ohio in Last Two Weeks

Western Reserve Petroleum has just snapped up lease rights to 4,500 acres in the past few weeks in Jefferson and Harrison Counties in eastern Ohio, located close to the border of West Virginia and not far from Pittsburgh, a prime Marcellus Shale region.

With one company locking up about 4,500 acres for oil and natural gas exploration over the past two weeks, Jefferson County property owners appear to be getting their own taste of the Marcellus Shale rush.

While companies such as Chesapeake Appalachia, A B Resources, CNX Gas Corp., Dominion Exploration and others are gobbling up property rights in West Virginia, Western Reserve Petroleum is quickly staking its claim to the oil and gas rights in eastern Ohio.

“It has taken us less than two weeks to acquire 4,500 acres in Jefferson and Harrison counties,” said Molly Johnson Phillips, lease acquisition manager for Western Reserve. “We are glad to give some smaller landowners a chance to get in on this.”

Western Reserve is not disclosing how much they are paying for the leases. Recent deals just across the border in West Virginia have seen a signing bonus of $3,600 per acre and royalty payments between 12 and 19 percent.

*The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register (May 30) – Gas Rush On In Jefferson