2 New Shale Layers in Eastern Ohio “Good Candidates” for Drilling
A new report has just been issued by the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Geological Survey. The report is titled “Mapping Source Rock and Thermal Maturity of the Devonian Shale Interval in Eastern Ohio” (full copy embedded below). The report, with lots of helpful maps, takes a close look at the Devonian Shale layer, which is composed of a number of sub-layers. The report concludes that two of those sub-layers–the Huron Shale and Rhinestreet Shale–have “significant oil and gas potential and may be good candidates for modern-day horizontal drilling techniques.” Cool! Beyond the Utica/Point Pleasant and the Marcellus, it appears that there are now other very promising layers in eastern Ohio–enough shale oil and gas to keep Ohio drillers busy for the next 100 years and more…
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It’s only been one year since Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical announced they are interested in building a $5 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
It was four years ago last month that BP entered the Utica Shale in a big way by signing a lease with members of the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley (ALOV) group to lease 84,000 acres in Trumbull County, OH (see 
In MDN’s daily trawl of the news, we came across a resource for landowners from Ohio State University (OSU), a program called “Pipeline Easement and Right-of-Way Agreements.” Apparently OSU’s Extension service conducts workshops on occasion for landowners and other interested parties. We don’t have a list of the workshops, but we do have copies of the resources they hand out–very useful resources, including four different fact sheets that we think landowners in any state will benefit from…
A Washington County, OH man is not happy with Blue Racer Midstream’s construction work on a new pipeline in the area. Heavy rain washed out gravel used as fill for the project. The man was on his way home (rural area) and ran into a ditch because, he says, the work was not done well and is “destroying” area roadways. Here’s the story of a man, a car, a ditch and a rainy night…
It was exactly a year ago (last Friday) that PTT Global Chemical announced their intentions to build an ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, OH (see 
We have an interesting update to share with you regarding the former Ormet Aluminum Plant site located on the shoreline of the Ohio River in Monroe County, OH. The plant closed its doors as an active aluminum plant in 2014 after Ohio regulators and Gov. John “foreigner hunter” Kasich failed to get high electric rates reduced for the plant, and refused to allow Ormet to burn coal to produce their own electricity until they could begin using natural gas to create electricity from gas wells drilled on the property (see 
NGLs, or natural gas liquids, are the “other” hydrocarbons that come out of the ground along with methane, or natural gas. The most common NGLs that come out of Marcellus and Utica boreholes in southwestern PA, eastern OH and northern WV are ethane, propane and butane. Ever so gradually new markets are opening up to sell NGLs. Right now for many drillers in the region ethane, the most common NGL, actually costs drillers to dispose of. It is an expense. But ethane could be used to feed cracker plants and so much more! Pipelines are beginning to cart NGLs to other regions like Canada, the Gulf Coast and (now) to the Philadelphia area where the NGLs can either be used in petrochemical plants or exported to be used in petchem plants overseas. But what if drillers had a way of storing NGLs until they could get access to pipelines or rail or new petchem plants to use it? That’s the premise behind a brand new startup called Mountaineer NGL Storage. Started by a group of industry veterans and backed with big money from Goldman Sachs, Mountaineer NGL Storage is developing a new underground storage facility in Monroe County, Ohio, near Clarington, along the Ohio River. Yesterday the company announced a non-binding open season for drillers who want to reserve storage capacity in the new facility when it goes live sometime in 2018…
Please bow your head in a moment of silence for the 70,000 fallen. Who? More like what. In June 2014 crews were working to frack a Utica Shale well at a Statoil drill pad in Monroe County, OH when hydraulic tubing (not to be confused with fracking) from some of the equipment caught fire. The fire quickly spread to 20 trucks lined up at the pad, burning the trucks (some of them exploding) and creating thick, black smoke that billowed for hours (see 
Last week MDN updated you on progress (or lack thereof) for Marathon’s Cornerstone Pipeline project–a 50-mile liquids pipeline connecting several processing plants in Ohio to Marathon’s refinery in Canton (see 
We don’t have to tell you it’s bad out there in the oil and gas patch. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared in the last year or so. Many workers are on unemployment. Some have transitioned to other jobs within the oil and gas industry–many to other industries completely. But there’s one guy–a former roughneck–who has transitioned to a job we never imagined. He creates Art Deco pieces by welding old machinery and leftover whatever together–into things like tables. Apparently he makes enough money from it to pay the bills, including the salary of one employee. He does admit, however, that he’s biding his time until the o&g industry turns around again. Meet a unique 50-something guy in Ohio who went from roughneck to artist…
CPA/consulting firm HBK (Hill, Barth & King) is fresh out with their 2016 Energy Assessment–an analysis of energy trends, opportunities, challenges and risks. In the assessment (full copy below) HBK Energy Advisors (a division of HBK) weighs in on issues like Obama’s odious Clean Power Plan, renewable energy, LNG and more. Of particular interest to MDN is a series of predictions made not in the official assessment, but in an accompanying blog post on the HBK website. The analysts make a series of predictions for Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida. The first prediction for Ohio is that pipeline work in the Buckeye State will increase, mostly due to the NEXUS pipeline. Which we find interesting. Just last week we told you an analyst from Wood Mackenzie predicted the NEXUS won’t get built (see