OH Supreme Court Puts Youngstown Anti-Frack Measure on Ballot
Only in America, and only in Ohio (slowly shaking our heads). Last Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court voted 7-0 to force an anti-fracking ballot measure that has been on the ballot in Youngstown, Ohio four times previously to be added to the ballot once again in November–for a fifth time. Even though (as the justices acknowledge) the ballot measure itself “may be” unconstitutional, as their own court recently found (see OH Supreme Court Strikes Down Home Rule in Gas Drilling Case). Apparently the justices object to a lowly county board of elections determining whether or not something is legal before it’s been voted on. As we told you in August, the Mahoning County Board of Elections voted unanimously to keep a so-called community bill of rights (i.e. anti-fracking) measure off the November ballot, a measure put forth by the nutters with LogicFree Mahoning Valley (aka FrackFree Mahoning Valley, see Elections Board Strikes Down 5th Youngstown Anti-Frack Ballot). The Ohio Supreme Court slapped the county right across the face and informed them determining legality is the purview of a court, not a board of elections. So the measure will go down to defeat a fifth time, wasting county time and money…
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Good news for the citizens of Ohio. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a report on Ohio’s Class II Underground Injection Control (UIC) program–that is, wastewater injection wells–and found that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) regulatory program is of “good quality” and continues to provide strong protections for Ohio’s underground sources of drinking water (USDW). The federal EPA just gave Ohio a big, fat, sloppy kiss right on the mouth along with a big two thumbs up that the state is doing it right when it comes to wastewater injection wells…
On June 28, 2014 a fire at Statoil’s Eisenbarth eight-well pad in Monroe County, OH quickly spread and engulfed some 20 trucks on the pad site, along with other equipment, chemicals and supplies stored at the site. It was a devastating fire (see 
We previously told you about anti-fossil fuel groups in three Ohio counties–Athens, Fulton and Medina–who are being used by Big Green groups to attempt an illegal “community bill of rights” routine after the Ohio Supreme Court had already found local communities can’t ban fracking. They tried again and Ohio’s Secretary of State John Husted tossed the ballot measures (see 
ET Rover is a 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will serve mostly U.S. customers and will cost $3.7 billion to build and run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see 
Once again Ohio Republicans are starting to lose their cool and are considering a dalliance with a high Utica Shale severance tax proposed by RINO Gov. John Kasich (who’s running for president, but then nobody knows since he’s at 0% in the polls). Perhaps state Republicans think by giving Kasich what he wants in a high severance tax it will enhance his presidential prospects with conservatives? (NOT!) Whatever the reason, Ohio’s left-leaning PBS outlet at Kent State is reporting legislators are meeting “behind closed doors” with members of the oil and gas industry to beg and plead for an increase in the severance tax…
Just a few weeks ago Dominion announced they will hand out $1 million in grants for housing, food and health care in the regions in which they operate (see 
While two, possibly three, major ethane cracker plant projects are being considered for the Marcellus/Utica region, there are six ethane crackers currently being built in the Gulf Coast region. The kicker? Marcellus and Utica Shale ethane will feed some of, perhaps portions for all of, those six cracker plants. It’s a shame, really. We could be reaping the rewards of a massive influx of jobs and investment not only by building an ethane cracker, but with the satellite businesses that will locate around it. Instead, much of that investment and those jobs are slipping away to the Gulf via NGL pipelines…
You really can’t make this stuff up. CORN–the Ohio-based Coalition to Reroute Nexus (as in the NEXUS pipeline)–is holding a CORN maze for a fund-raiser. Could anything be CORNier? Of course, CORN is not really about re-routing the NEXUS pipeline to another area–it’s about stopping it altogether. Antis have a hard time telling the truth. It seems to be a congenital flaw. We’ve previously written about CORN on a number of occasions (see our 
For several years a thorny legal issue in Ohio has been bubbling in the background–the Dormant Minerals Right Act (DMA). In a nutshell, there are two DMAs in Ohio–one passed in 1989 that went into effect in 1992, and another in 2006 which added certain additional procedural requirements to the 1989 version. The DMA in its various versions provides for mineral rights that had previously been separated from surface rights to transfer to the surface owner under certain conditions. The problem for both drillers and for landowners in Ohio, is in knowing which set of DMA rules to use (1989 or 2006) in determining who owns the mineral rights. It’s a big problem when drillers are spending sometimes up to $15,000 per acre in lease bonuses, to say nothing of where to send the royalty check. Some drillers are holding back on leasing because of this issue. There are now 12 (!) different cases before the Ohio Supreme Court dealing with the DMA and decisions may come soon for many of them. We get a good overview and update on DMA litigation from the legal beagles at the Bricker & Eckler law firm…
A couple of bits of news from Gulfport Energy, a driller focused primarily on the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio. In April, MDN reported that Gulfport had inked a deal with Paloma Partners III, a small energy & exploration company headquartered in Houston, to purchase 24,000 acres in Belmont and Jefferson counties (Ohio) for $12,500 per acre (see 
The NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline, a $1.5-$2.0 billion natural gas pipeline that will carry Utica and Marcellus Shale gas spanning 11 counties in Ohio, 3 counties in Michigan, and eventually connect to the Dawn Energy Hub in Canada, has had to take some Ohio landowners to court simply to gain access to their property survey for potential routes. Sometimes county judges rule against NEXUS (see 
Last week the CEO of Thailand chemical giant PTT Global flew to Belmont County, OH to announce his company is spending $100 million over the next 9-12 months on preliminary work to build an ethane cracker plant in the county (see 
Midstream giant Williams and drilling giant Chesapeake Energy are cuddling a little bit closer in the Ohio Utica Shale. Williams announced today they have signed an agreement with Chesapeake to run gathering pipelines in a new area of the dry gas Utica for Chesapeake in return for signing a contract that binds Chessy to using Williams until 2035. Williams was already gathering natural gas for Chessy on 140,000 acres of Utica Shale land in Ohio. This agreement extends the time on that 140,000 acres by adding another 20 years, and adds another 50,000 acres to the mix…
A few more details about the proposed site for an ethane cracker plant in Belmont County (see