$900M Utica Gas-Fired Electric Plant Coming to Harrison County, OH
Several news sources are reporting that EmberClear has committed to fund and build a new $900 million, 1,000-megawatt electric generating plant in Harrison County, OH. The new plant will be fed by Utica Shale gas. Officials in the county have been working on a deal to lure the plant to the county since December of last year and stress it is a “long-term project” and “not a slam-dunk” because of extensive regulatory hurdles. If the project happens, it will generate 500 temporary construction jobs and 30 permanent jobs and use a huge amount of natural gas to power it (good for drillers!). MDN did some checking and found one potential cloud over the deal. EmberClear was, until July, a Canadian-based company. But it went bankrupt and after emerging from bankruptcy it changed its name to Ember Partners, now based in Houston, TX. Apparently the bankruptcy hasn’t slowed them down–but it does raise a question about the financial stability of the company and its ability to fund a big-money project like the Harrison Power Project. However, these projects are typically funded by one or several investors and not by the company that builds and operates the facility…
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When Aubrey McClendon first trumpeted his find in the Ohio Utica Shale, he famously said the Utica Shale could be worth $500 billion, and the “biggest thing economically to hit Ohio, since maybe the plow.” Not quite as famous, but on the same day at the same event, McClendon also said the Utica “is likely most analogous, but economically superior to, the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.” That one turned heads and got tongues flapping. McClendon made those remarks five years ago this month at the Ohio Governor’s 21st Century Energy & Economic Summit in Columbus, OH. The reason Aubrey was so excited was because of the oil potential in the Utica. But fate is a funny thing. As it turns out, it is natural gas that’s turned out to be the big story in the Utica. Last Friday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an article that chronicles the development of the Utica and illustrates, with charts and graphs, how the Utica has turned out to be a gas rather than an oil play–at least so far…
Natural gas-fired electric plants are a really big deal throughout the Marcellus/Utica region. Each time one of these plants gets built, it injects upward of $1 billion (or more) into the local and regional economy, creates 500 or more temporary jobs and 25-30 permanent jobs. And the gas it uses…oy vey! They are an important new customer for the abundant supplies of natural gas we have. So it’s a big deal when a new plant gets announced, and then, when that plant gets officially approved. Last October (nearly a year ago now) Advanced Power Services announced they want to build a second mega-electric generating plant that taps into and uses Ohio’s Utica Shale. The new plant will generate a whopping 1,100 megawatts of electricity and be located in Columbiana County, OH (see 
Ohio’s Ninth District Court of Appeals has upheld the right of NEXUS Gas Transmission to enter onto private land in order to conduct surveys for a potential pipeline route. Ohio’s Sixth District Court previously made a similar ruing in favor of NEXUS. Top energy law firm Bricker & Eckler argued for NEXUS in both cases and turns in the following report:
The Ohio Business Roundtable (BRT) is a partnership of the CEOs of leading Ohio companies that collectively account for more than $1 trillion in annual revenues, $1 trillion in market value and $2.6 trillion in assets. BRT’s members employ 2.6 million men and women, invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually in combined charitable contributions and research and development, and generate billions of dollars in sales for small and medium-sized businesses that are part of the supply chain. When the BRT in Ohio talks, people had better listen. Here’s the latest in what the BRT has to say: The state (i.e. Gov. Kasich) needs “a comprehensive reworking of the state’s energy policies in order to accelerate shale gas development.” No more tiptoeing around. Build those pipelines and build them NOW. That’s the upshot of a new report from the BRT titled, “Improving Ohio Energy Competitiveness” (full copy below). The report is backed up by detailed research from powerhouse consulting company McKinsey and Co. (their research is also embedded below). The BRT’s report points out the importance of the state’s natural gas-fired electric generating plants and says without more pipelines, new power plants won’t get built. The two issues are joined at the hip–vitally important for Ohio’s shale drillers, midstream companies, electric generators and yes Ohio’s electric ratepayers as well. LISTEN UP: Here’s what the BRT had to say…
Good news for Marcellus/Utica drillers. You now have access to a previously-shuttered wastewater injection well in the Youngstown, OH-area. You may recall the sad story of D&L Energy, a Youngstown, OH operator of several wastewater injection wells. D&L’s owner was Ben Lupo, who also owned sister company Hardrock Excavating, operating both companies under the D&L Energy Group umbrella. In September 2012, Lupo instructed a Hardrock employee to dump untreated frack wastewater down a sewer drain that emptied into the Mahoning River. Lupo and the driver were found out in early 2013 (see 
American Electric Power is selling four electric generating plants to a newly formed joint venture of Blackstone and ArcLight Capital Partners. Three of the plants are natural gas-fired–two of them in Ohio and one in Indiana. One of the plants is coal-fired, located in Ohio. Total sale price for all four: $2.17 billion. While the announcement doesn’t say, we expect at least the gas-fired plants in Ohio, and perhaps the one in Indiana, are fed in part by Utica/Marcellus natural gas. Which is why the story caught our eye. The plants are already up and running–this is simply a transfer of ownership and (we presume) management of the plants. The larger story is just how important these types of plants are in the Marcellus/Utica ecosystem–because they use a huge amount of gas. Here’s the details of the deal…
Anti-fossil fuel zealots in Athens, Meigs and Portage counties in Ohio are spitting and sputtering after the Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday once again shut down their childish frack ban ballot measures–ruling that Secretary of State Jon Husted and the election boards of those counties did not violate the law in tossing out the ballot measures. The radical Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is particularly torqued off. It’s not the first time the Supremes have slapped them down. Their frack ban ballot measures were also tossed last year by the Supremes (see 
Spectra Energy’s NEXUS Pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada, continues to build support and a good head of steam. In July the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a favorable draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project, a sure sign that FERC intends to approve it (see 
Duke Energy Ohio, an LDC or “local distribution company” serves some half a million customers with natural gas in Ohio. The company has a ~12 mile pipeline to flow gas it needs to move from one point to another in Hamilton County, the southwest corner of the state. The Duke pipeline has been around and in service since the 1950s. Duke needs to replace that pipe or some of the half million Duke customers won’t get natural gas any more. Because anything to do with “fracking” or “pipelines” has been so thoroughly bastardized by the media and anti-drilling whack jobs, there was, of course, opposition to Duke’s plan. So Duke “listened” and has scaled back their plans. Instead of building a 30-inch gas pipeline running at 600 psi (pounds per square inch), the revised plan calls for a 20-inch pipeline running at 400 psi. Duke has proposed two potential routes (see the map below). Here’s the lowdown on Duke’s scaled-back, tiny pipeline project in Hamilton County called the Central Corridor Pipeline Extension Project…
The longer we write MDN, the easier it gets–because the stories just keep repeating themselves. That’s how we felt when we spotted a story about the adults in Youngstown, OH pushing back against the temper tantrums of anti-fracking, childish nutters in the city who have, now for the sixth time, put a frack ban measure on the ballot for the November election. Five previous times the same group of rabid anti-fossil fuel haters have done this–and five times they have gone down to defeat (see 
Dominion launched a $4 billion, 25-year Pipeline Infrastructure Replacement (PIR) program in mid-2008. The program involves replacing over 5,500 miles of Dominion’s 22,000-mile pipeline system. Most of the pipeline to be replaced was installed in the first half of the 1900s. Some of the pipeline (much?) is being done in Ohio. The pipelines Dominion wants to replace in Ohio are regulated by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO). If Dominion wants to do anything with or for the pipelines in Ohio, they first need PUCO permission. Dominion has sought, and now received, PUCO permission to expand the program in Ohio. Dominion currently spends $160 million per year on the program in Ohio. PUCO gave them permission to up that amount to $170 million next year and $200 in 2018. Why is that important? Because Dominion gets to “recover” the costs (i.e. charge the costs) to utility customers. Dominion customers in Ohio can expect to see a rate increase…
