Anti-NEXUS Referendum in Bowling Green, OH Defeated by Huge Margin
When we notice municipal referendums and ballot measures related to blocking shale drilling and pipelines, we always highlight them. Such a ballot measure appeared on the ballot in Bowling Green (Wood County), OH on Tuesday. We honestly were not aware of it prior to reading an article in the Toledo Blade. The ballot measure called for a ban on pipelines that flow natural gas and other fossil fuels over city-owned property. It’s aim is to prevent NEXUS Pipeline from building nearby. Antis got enough signatures for this glittering jewel to appear on the November ballot. And how did the good people of Bowling Green vote? They saw right through this one–voting it DOWN by a huge margin: 61%-39%. That’s a blowout, politically. But you know antis. Nothing, including the truth, will ever change their minds. The Bowling Green ballot measure was the work of out-of-towners–the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)–about whom we’ve written plenty (see our CELDF stories here). CELDF, based in Pennsylvania, targets towns with sufficiently large pockets of nutters who will sign on to their garbage. As they usually have to do, the CELDF needed to ramrod the Bowling Green ballot measure through a lengthy legal process, eventually getting permission from the Ohio Supreme Court before it could appear on the November ballot. How did the nutters take such a humiliating defeat? CELDF-hired lawyer Terry Lodge (from Toledo), pledged to bring the ballot measure back again and again in future, wasting taxpayers’ money…
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Over the past six months we’ve run a steady string of stories about Mountaineer NGL Storage and its proposed underground NGL (mostly ethane) storage facility in Monroe County, Ohio, near Clarington, along the Ohio River (
The International (non-U.S.) Baker Hughes rig count for October 2017 was 951, up 20 from the 931 counted in September 2017, and up 31 from the 920 counted in October 2016. The U.S. rig count for October 2017 was 922, down 18 from the 940 counted in September 2017, but up 378 from the 544 counted in October 2016. Notice that we have almost as many rigs operating in the U.S. as the entire rest of the world (minus Canada). Canada’s rig count has improved a lot since earlier this year. However, Canada’s October rig count drooped a bit–204 in October (down 4 from September) but up 48 from October 2016. What about rig counts in the Marcellus/Utica? Pennsylvania lost one rig and ran an average of 32 rigs during October, versus Ohio running 29 rigs and West Virginia running 15 rigs, the same as September…
The director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Craig Butler, continues to go off the rails with a major grudge against Rover Pipeline (see 
In March MDN reported on a court case decided in Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals that seems to say that at least some landmen in Ohio DO need to be licensed real estate agents, in order to get paid (see 
This story necessarily gets into the weeds of pipeline construction. But so you have the essential story line up front, this is it: On Monday Energy Transfer asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to dump something called annular pressure monitoring (APM) when drilling underground (horizontal directional drilling, or HDD) for the Rover Pipeline–and on Tuesday FERC granted that permission. Here’s the slightly longer explanation. Rover is a $3.7 billion, 711-mile natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada. Early on, Rover had early missteps when using HDD to insert pipeline under things like rivers and roads. The most serious episode occurred when Rover drilling spilled 2 million gallons of non-toxic drilling mud in a swamp near the Tuscarawas River (in Ohio) back in April (see 
NEXUS Pipeline has had to use the unpreferred last option and has taken landowners of 42 properties to court using eminent domain in order to secure easements so they can lay pipeline through those properties. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. NEXUS received final approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in August, the first major pipeline to get approved following a newly restored quorum at FERC (see 
The U.S. District Court in Akron, OH has just made a major ruling that affects all Utica landowners and drillers. In 2015, the Ohio Supreme Court accepted a case that will sound familiar to readers of MDN. The case, known as Lutz v. Chesapeake Appalachia, is about whether or not drillers (Chesapeake in this case) are allowed to deduct certain post-production costs from landowner royalty checks. The Ohio Supremes were asked to decide whether Ohio follows the “at the well” rule, which permits the deduction of post-production costs, or if the state follows the “marketable product” rule, which limits the deduction of post-production costs under certain circumstances. The Supremes came down off Mount Olympus in November 2016 to render their verdict (see 
Last week NEXUS Pipeline notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) they had begun construction on the $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. We purposely held off on sharing this exciting news until we could tell you where construction has begun. Each week NEXUS, like other interstate pipelines answering to FERC, provides a weekly update on construction and other project activities. We have a copy of that report (below). What does it show? Preliminary activities are taking place to move equipment, put up signage, and begin to work in “Spread 1”–meaning somewhere within Columbia, Stark, Summit, and Wayne counties in Ohio. Similar work is happening in “Spread 4”–meaning counties in Michigan. Initial site preparation is already happening at three of the four planned compressor stations. Here’s what we have been able to piece together about the initial construction work done on NEXUS…
Ohio Utica Shale drilling is showing signs of a new boom in drilling–much to the delight of everyone, except anti’s. A new shale boom in the Buckeye State is good for landowners, it’s good for the economy, and it’s good for jobs. Frankly, it’s good for everyone. What are the signs of a burgeoning new shale boom? Here’s one sign: Business at a barge facility on the Ohio River where drillers offload equipment and supplies had all but dried up–at least traffic coming from shale-related customers. The facility operator kept afloat by handling soybeans and corn. But now? The bookings from the oil and gas industry are rolling in again. Drilling supplies like barite are once again coming to the facility. Add to that rig counts in Ohio are inching up–almost at parity with Pennsylvania (see 
Last week the The Independent Power Producers (IPPs) of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia wrote an official letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) detailing their objection to a proposed plan by the Dept. of Energy (DOE) to give special treatment to electric power generating facilities powered by coal and nuclear plants. The DOE recently ordered FERC to devise new market rules favoring coal and nukes on the premise they contribute to “grid resiliency.” The IPPs writing the letter in opposition represent at least 26 shale gas-fired electric plant projects across the three states, which will contribute $21 billion to those state economies and generate 20,000+ jobs. Below we have the letter sent to FERC by the IPPs. That letter prompted our friends at Energy in Depth to produce a list of the projects the IPPs are building (or have built) in the tri-state area. It is an impressive list. We liked it and grabbed it to share with the MDN audience…
Last week the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) held a “first-of-its-kind” oil and gas open house to discuss communication between the agency and the oil and gas industry. Which is kind of interesting considering Craig Bulter, the head of OEPA, is no glittering example of communication. He’s been talking with Rover Pipeline people, saying one thing in private, and another in public (see 