New Ohio Chapter of NARO Launches for Rights & Landowners
The National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO), with a mission “to encourage and promote exploration and production of minerals in the United States while preserving, protecting, advancing and representing the interests and rights of mineral and royalty owners” is getting a brand new state chapter–in Ohio. The Ohio chapter of NARO is an offshoot from the NARO Appalachia Chapter–in order to focus exclusively on issues in Ohio.
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Last November Encino Acquisition Partners (i.e. Encino Energy) completed its purchase of all of Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio Utica Shale assets for $2 billion (see
In 2017 a group of Ohio landowners did what others had previously done in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere–they filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy claiming Chessy had screwed them and about 1,000 other Ohio landowners out of a collective $30 million in royalty payments (see
Ohio recently passed an odious new law (House Bill 6) to prop up two bankrupt nuclear power plants and several coal-fired plants (see
Could we *finally* see some movement on an NGL (natural gas liquids) storage facility in the Marcellus/Utica? Indeed it seems possible–even likely. Mountaineer NGL Storage is planning to build an NGL storage operation in Monroe County, OH, located just across the river (and border) from West Virginia.
Two weeks ago MDN brought you news about a newly passed Ohio law (House Bill 6) to prop up two bankrupt nuclear power plants and several coal-fired plants (see
How much “due diligence” must a landowner engage in when it comes to locating a long lost mineral rights owner in Ohio? According to Ohio’s Dormant Mineral Act (ODMA), the landowner who wants to reclaim mineral rights that were severed must (a) send a certified letter to the last known address of the rights owner, and (b) if that doesn’t work, publish a notice in local newspapers to try and find the long lost rights owner. After that, the landowner can reclaim the mineral rights (an oversimplification, but you get the idea).
In March MDN reported that work has restarted, after eight years, to complete an injection well in Mahoning County, OH (see
PTT Global Chemical continues to behave is if it’s going forward with building a $7.5 billion ethane cracker in Dilles Bottom (Belmont County), Ohio. The latest evidence? The company is actively buying up homes close to the proposed site. Over the past two months the company has snapped up six homes and is in discussions right now with others.
We caught wind of something on the Tallgrass quarterly conference call yesterday that had previously eluded our otherwise reliable radar. Tallgrass, via its subsidiary BNN Water, bought out and merged in Central Environmental Services back in May. That’s important because Central is a “water services” provider in the Marcellus/Utica. Namely, Central (now BNN) operates three injection wells in Ohio. On yesterday’s Tallgrass conference call, company officials said they are working on a plan to build pipelines to those injection wells, saving a whole bunch of truck trips.
It’s hard to miss the stories in oil and gas (even national) media: Company after company, in particular oilfield services companies, are predicting a big slowdown in drilling during the second half of 2019. Over the past few days OFS companies including Schlumberger, Halliburton, Patterson-UTI, Superior Energy Services, Helmerich & Payne, and RPC have all predicted a coming decline (crash?) in drilling in the near future. What about the Marcellus/Utica region? Does the coming slowdown affect us too?
A new law passed in Ohio to bail out two bankrupt nuclear plants was pitched as a way for ratepayers to save money. That was a lie. A bunch of squishy RINOs along with some Democrats in the Ohio legislature passed a new bill yesterday, signed into law immediately by Ohio’s RINO governor, Mike DeWine, to add a new surcharge to every residential and business electric bill in order to keep the two financially failing nuke plants operating for years to come. It’s a $5.4 billion boondoggle.
This is a momentous occasion, nearly 13 years in the making. The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued permits on June 28 to drill two Utica Shale wells in Monroe County. Both wells begin on privately owned land, but then travel under sections of Wayne National Forest (WNF). As near as we can tell, these are the first two such wells to pass under WNF land. Below we tell you exactly where they’re located, and which company received the permits to drill them.
Super secret sources are whispering to Bloomberg that Energy Transfer is seriously considering selling its 33% ownership stake in the 713-mile, 3.25 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas Rover Pipeline, a line that flows Utica Shale gas from Ohio into Michigan and all the way to Ontario, Canada. Such a sale would net ET somewhere around $2.5 billion. Yes, we’re shocked!