Bitcoin Miner Gets FERC OK to Buy OH Gas Plant; PJM Watchdog Loses
Back in May, we told you that FTAI Infrastructure agreed to sell Long Ridge Energy & Power, the 505-megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant and 1,600-acre former Ormet aluminum smelter site in Hannibal (Monroe County), Ohio, to bitcoin miner-turned-AI data center developer MARA Holdings for $1.52 billion (see Bitcoin Miner MARA Buys OH’s Long Ridge Gas Plant, Transload Site). The new news is that on Nov. 4, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the sale, finding it “consistent with the public interest.” Along the way, FERC turned aside an attempt by PJM’s market watchdog to tie strings to the deal. Both sides now say the closing will happen by the end of this month. Read More “Bitcoin Miner Gets FERC OK to Buy OH Gas Plant; PJM Watchdog Loses”
Antero Midstream (AM) has a new pipeline on the drawing board. During Thursday’s 3Q26 earnings call, CEO Michael Kennedy said AM wants to build a North-South pipeline from Antero Resources’ West Virginia field north to the Clarington, Ohio, market. Kennedy said AM is “scoping it right now” and spending “a little initial capital” to assess it, and that “you’ll probably see us FID that in 2027.” (FID means final investment decision, the point where a company commits to build.) There was no press release. The news came out in answer to a question from a Goldman Sachs analyst. 
Ohio’s state-land leasing program has a new target. A driller (whose name is kept secret by state law, for now) has asked the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to open about 618 acres under the Monroe Lake Wildlife Area in Monroe County to shale drilling. Public comments are open through Nov. 30. The twist this time? Because of the calendar, the final call may land on the desk of whoever wins next month’s race for governor. 
The Marcellus/Utica region received 29 new drilling permits last week, September 28 – October 4, nearly double the 16 permits issued two weeks earlier. Pennsylvania issued 20 of the new permits. Ohio issued 9 new permits. And West Virginia got skunked, issuing no new permits. The drillers who received new permits last week were: Blackhill Energy, Coterra Energy (now Devon Energy), EOG Resources, Expand Energy, Gulfport Energy, Infinity Natural Resources (INR), and Snyder Brothers. 
It’s a sellout, and we now have the full scorecard. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auctioned drilling rights to 40 parcels of federal minerals under Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (WNF), and every parcel found a buyer. The 2,776.84 acres in Monroe and Washington counties brought $11,097,693 in total receipts. Five companies won leases, and one of them, Apex Energy Operating III LLC, walked off with nearly two-thirds of the acreage. We have BLM’s full parcel-by-parcel results, embedded below. It’s the first federal lease sale in the WNF since March 2017. 
EQT is planning another pipeline — and this one is big. Through a brand-new subsidiary called Appalachian Transmission Gateway LLC (ATG), the Marcellus/Utica’s largest driller has opened bidding on the “POWER Pipeline,” a 42-inch, 50-mile line that would carry a full 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas from Greene County, Pennsylvania, west to the Clarington hub in Monroe County, Ohio. The open season quietly began Aug. 26 and runs through Oct. 26. We found no press release announcing it — the notice simply went up, and the trade press caught it a week later. 
Here we go again. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finally issued three permits to drill on Wayne National Forest (WNF) land in Monroe County, Ohio, back in May — the first new drilling permits in Ohio’s only national forest in years. Predictably, the same coalition of green groups that has kept a lid on WNF for the better part of two decades ran straight back to federal court to try to stop them. 
Gulfport Energy dropped its second quarter 2026 numbers on Monday (Aug. 3), followed by an analyst call Tuesday morning — the first for new President and CEO Nick Dell’Osso, who took the chair May 28 after running Chesapeake/Expand Energy for five years. The profit line went the wrong direction. But strip away the accountants’ noise, and there’s a genuinely good story here for Ohio landowners, for the service companies that turn dirt, and for anyone holding the stock. 
