Lordstown 2nd Gas-Fired Plant in Jeopardy from Trump Policy
The outspoken Bill Siderewicz, builder of a string of gas-fired electric generating plants in Ohio and elsewhere, is (surprise!) speaking out. Siderewicz, president of Boston-based Clean Energy Future, is the builder of the Lordstown Energy Center in Trumbull County, a project begun in 2016 and now nearing completion (see Lordstown Energy Center Breaks Ground on $890M Electric Plant). The plant will generate 940 megawatts of electricity when it goes online. In addition to the Lordstown plant, Siderewicz has plans to build a second plant right next to the first. Except maybe now it won’t get built. President Trump’s Dept. of Energy, under Secretary Rick Perry, is hellbent on devising a scheme to “protect” coal-fired and nuclear electric generating plants–in the name of grid resiliency and national security. It’s bogus. We’ve previously written that we do not support it. Neither does Siderewicz. He calls Trump’s energy policy “un-American,” and said, “Everyone [who] has an IQ of more than 25 is upset about this.” Ouch. Tell us what you really think, Bill! The reason he’s upset: If you make the electricity market noncompetitive by favoring certain types of energy sources, there are consequences. Plants like the second Lordstown Energy Center, and the close-to-one billion dollars it takes to build it (and the tax revenues that flow from it) won’t materialize. If you favor coal and nukes, making their more expensive form of electricity artificially cheaper (by using government subsidies), then those who compete freely, like Siderewicz, can no longer compete. The markets are not truly free. And people like Siderewicz decide to not build these important projects…
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The NEXUS Pipeline project, owned by DTE Energy and Spectra Energy (Enbridge), is being sued by a farmer in Stark County, OH. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that runs from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. The Stark County farmer signed an easement with NEXUS in 2016. Construction began earlier this year. In late March, a lawyer hired by the farmer sent NEXUS a letter telling the company of erosion at the farm, due to their digging activities. The farmer estimated about $23,000 of damage at the time. But, according to the lawsuit, NEXUS didn’t fix the problem and that led to more damage–now up to $55,000 worth. The problem is that topsoil on the farm has been washed away. The farmer wants it replaced. If true, it certainly seems like a reasonable request to us. The farmer isn’t demanding millions of dollars, just the cost to replace soil swept away by NEXUS-related digging…
As MDN reports in today’s lead story, Ohio has just achieved a new milestone by producing more natural gas than the state has ever produced during the first three months of this year (see Top 25 Producing Gas & Oil Wells in Ohio Utica for 1Q18). The best performing individual wells are located in the southern part of the Utica play–in Belmont, Jefferson, Monroe, and Guernsey counties. However, don’t overlook the wells and overall performance of counties in the northern part of the play–places like Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Particularly Columbiana County. The Youngstown Business Journal does a deep dive into the numbers for the northern tier counties and finds that wells drilled by Hilcorp in Columbiana produced “strong results” in 1Q18. Here’s a closer look at the northern Utica counties and the drillers who work there…
Just a few days ago we told you about a group of anti-fossil fuel nutters, backed by the Big Green group CELDF, making yet another run at an illegal frack ban in Columbus, OH (see 
Natural gas production in the U.S. has rocketed skyward in just the past few weeks. According to the experts at RBN Energy, “the abruptness and sheer strength with which production has surged” has “taken the market by surprise.” Gas production rose in every region of the country, but it rocketed in one region in particular. Yep, in the Marcellus/Utica. When you look at how much our region was producing on June 7, and then again on June 28, the difference in just those three weeks is astonishing. Production of natgas soared and was 600 million cubic feet per day higher on June 28 than three weeks prior. Amazing! But production did not increase in every area of the Marcellus/Utica region. In one area, production decreased. Below you’ll find out where production went up, and where it went down in the M-U in June…
The spirit of P.T. Barnum is alive and well in Columbus, OH where enough suckers have been tricked by the odious anti-fracking group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to sign a petition to get a misnamed “Community Bill of Rights” onto the ballot this November. It’s more of the same from the PA-based CELDF. The Bill of Rights is a document in direct contravention to the Ohio Constitution, which reserves the right to regulate oil and gas drilling to the state itself–not to local municipalities. Each time the CELDF has tried this nonsense in other locations it has failed. The CELDF ballot initiative in Youngstown has now been voted down by voters seven times (see 
In 2016 MDN brought you the story of researchers who found microbes (bacteria) living nearly two miles down in Utica Shale wells. They dubbed one of the never-before-seen bacterial “lifeforms” in the well Frackibacter. We immediately labeled it a different name: Frackenstein (see 
We find this story truly disgusting, and disturbing. On the Fourth of July, a small group of parents in Ohio forced their children to attend an Appalachia Resist! protest “camp” in Athens where the kids were brainwashed and indoctrinated, taught to hate fossil fuels and hate the people that work to extract them. Perhaps parents passing down their irrational hatred to their children is nothing new–but teaching kids how to sabotage equipment and spike trees, in order to stop legal fossil fuel extraction activities, is rather new–or at least not something you see a lot of. What kind of country have we become where parents do this to their kids?…
Last Thursday, Ascent Resources, a company founded by Aubrey McClendon after he left Chesapeake Energy, announced it is buying 113,400 Utica Shale acres along with 93 operating wells located in eastern Ohio for $1.5 billion. The new acreage tips Ascent over the 300,000 Utica acre line and catapults the company into one of the largest privately owned drillers (exploration and production) in the U.S. The companies doing the selling are CNX Resources and Hess (selling a joint venture they co-owned, each selling their share for $400 million each, for a total of $800 million), Utica Minerals Development (a subsidiary of First Reserve, a private equity firm headquartered in Greenwich, CT, and EMG), and a fourth, unnamed mystery seller. The CNX/Hess acreage (78,000 net acres of the 113,400 acres) is located in the wet gas window of Belmont, Guernsey, Harrison and Noble counties. We’re not sure about the location of the other acreage. The CNX/Hess jv sale marks Hess’ total exit from the Utica Shale. So how will Ascent pay for all of their new shiny new assets? 
As we have reported since late last year, Cabot Oil & Gas, long-known for the incredible amount of Marcellus natural gas they produce from Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania, is eyeing north central Ohio as a potential spot for “what’s next” after the Marcellus (see