Statewide OH

Energy Companies | Hess | Ohio | Statewide OH

Hess Buys NatGas Contracts Division of Delta Energy
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

Energy giant Hess Corp. announced yesterday it is buying the natural gas marketing division of Delta Energy. Delta is based in Dublin, Ohio. What Hess is buying are energy contracts—the right to sell natural gas to a certain list of commercial and industrial customers. Hess is a huge company with operations that span upstream (drilling new wells) to midstream (pipelines, processing and terminals) to downstream (selling oil and gas to end user customers). Hess owns leases for 185,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio and seems to be making moves to increase its presence in the state for all of its operations.

More on the Hess purchase from Delta:

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Energy Companies | EnerVest | Ohio | Statewide OH

EnerVest Puts 539,000 Utica Shale Acres on Auction Block
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

EnerVest has put leases for 539,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio on the auction block and hopes to get more than $6 billion dollars for it. That would be something north of $11,000 per acre. Pretty optimistic, but hey, you never know!

Apparently EnerVest is the accidental energy company who just happened to amass a 3/4 of a million acres of leases some time ago and now wants to take advantage by selling some of it. From the Wall Street Journal:

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Ohio | Statewide OH

Utica Shale Permits/Drilling Update for Ohio – August 2012
September 12, 2012September 12, 2012

The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) releases updates on Utica Shale permits and drilling each week. The numbers for August permits, along with cumulative totals for all permits issued and wells fracked and drilled, is shown in the handy table below. What do the latest numbers say? Of the 21 counties where there either has been or is permitting and drilling, the hot spot is Carroll County. Last month Carroll County saw 25 new permits issued for Utica wells, all of them issued to Chesapeake Energy.

Here’s a rundown on the latest numbers, telling you where, and how much, Utica Shale drilling is happening in Ohio:

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CNX Resources | CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

CONSOL Exec Says Utica Pipelines are Critical Need
September 10, 2012September 10, 2012

Harry Schurr, general manager of Utica operations for CONSOL Energy’s CNX Gas, puts pipelines at the top of his wish list for what he needs in the Utica Shale. Schurr made the following comments a day after the NEXUS Gas Transmission was announced last week:

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Mahoning County | Ohio | Statewide OH

Interesting News from YOUNG for OH Landowners, Job Seekers
September 7, 2012September 7, 2012

The Youngstown Ohio Utica and Natural Gas Conference and Expo (or the “YOUNG Expo” as it’s called), held yesterday and today at the Covelli Center in Youngstown, OH, has become a major regional event in the Utica Shale. With more than 1,500 people attending yesterday and more than 100 vendors, YOUNG is not only a great place for businesses to connect and job seekers to find work, it’s also a news generator.

The Youngstown Business Journal picked up on the following revelation during a presentation from Nisource that will interest landowners in Mahoning County:

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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Supply Chain

New Marcellus/Utica Shale Supply Chain Website Launches
September 6, 2012September 6, 2012

The Youngstown Business Journal and Farris Marketing today launch a new Marcellus and Utica Shale supply chain connection website called ShaleLink.com. The website offers free listings for businesses interested in in selling (or buying) services related to the shale oil and gas industry. But there’s a catch: Your business has to be located in either Ohio or Pennsylvania to be listed for free.

Here’s the press release/story from the ShaleLink.com website describing the new service:

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BP | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

An Update on Ohio’s Utica Shale – Facts & Figures
September 5, 2012September 5, 2012

An article in Crain’s Cleveland Business yesterday takes a look at the pattern of investment in the Utica Shale play in Ohio. According to the article, the Utica follows the same model found in other areas of the world: First smaller independent oil and gas companies invest doing the “retail” work of going house to house to get leases signed. They may even drill a few wells. But soon after, larger o&g companies, the “majors” descend and buy up many of those investments.

The article shares some interesting facts and figures about the current status of investment and development of the Utica in Ohio, among them:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH

Ohio Home Rule Movement to Regulate Drilling Picks up Steam
September 4, 2012September 4, 2012

The Akron Beacon Journal reports there’s a new movement gaining steam in Ohio to return “home rule” to local municipalities when it comes to oil and gas drilling. Home rule, for those unfamiliar, grants municipalities a say in whether, and where, drilling for natural gas and oil can occur within a township. Think of it as zoning, which is precisely what it is. The home rule debate is currently red hot in New York State where, similar to Ohio, the state previously passed a law removing the right of local municipalities to regulate drilling in any way (including bans). It’s also a hot topic in Pennsylvania where zoning provisions in the newly passed Act 13 law are now in PA Supreme Court awaiting a final decision.

Ohio passed a law in 2004 taking the right away from municipalities to regulate drilling. Now, some residents are trying to get the state legislature to reconsider it:

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Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

PA Drilling Rig Count Sinks to Lowest in 2 1/2 Years
August 29, 2012August 29, 2012

If you kick around the oil and gas industry for any length of time, you’ll hear about something called “the rig count.” Rig counts are the number of drilling rigs in use by energy companies to drill (or “spud”) new wells. If the rig count falls, that means new leasing is likely to fall and eventually, natural gas production will fall. But in the case of the Marcellus, falling rig counts don’t mean falling production—quite the opposite. It just means there’s a whole lot of wells already drilled, waiting to be completed and hooked up to pipelines.

Still, a falling rig count does give you a feel for where new drilling will (or won’t) take place—valuable for landowners and businesses to know. The latest numbers for Pennsylvania show the rig count in that state falling to its lowest level in years:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Fracking Coming to Wayne National Forest in SE OH
August 28, 2012August 28, 2012

The path is now cleared for hydraulic fracturing and Utica shale gas drilling to begin in Wayne National Forest in southeast Ohio. The U.S. Forest Service, after holding off on a decision about fracking in the forest until a study was completed, has concluded that fracking is safe to do and has approved a plan to move forward with it.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH

OH Muskingum Watershed Votes to Lease Land, Allow Pipeline
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

MDN reported in early June that the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) board had caved to pressure from enviro-bullies and pulled back from selling water from its vast supply to Utica Shale drillers (see this MDN story).

The MWCD said at the time they would wait for the results of a study they commissioned with the U.S. Geological Survey to look at water sales from three of their reservoirs: Clendening, Atwood and Leesville (see this MDN story). The MWCD has not decided to sell more water (yet), but they did decide on Friday to lease some of their land for drilling. They also approved a right-of-way to extend a drilling pipeline. Both decisions have anti-drillers ticked off.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH

Energy Group Says U.S. Can be Off Foreign Oil by 2020
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

The Consumer Energy Alliance says if legal and regulatory roadblocks were removed, the United States could be producing and meeting 95% of it’s own energy needs in the next eight years—by 2020. The Marcellus and Utica Shale play a role in such a plan.

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Ohio | Ross County | Statewide OH

Ohio Shale Drilling Starting to Expand South & West
August 23, 2012August 23, 2012

According to Rhonda Reda, executive director for the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program, interest in drilling in Ohio that started in the eastern part of the state—in the prolific Utica Shale—will soon start moving to south and west in the state. In fact, there’s already signs that drilling interest is expanding southwest to Ross County.

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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Taxation

Conservative Pushback for Gov. Kasich Drilling Tax Increase
August 23, 2012August 23, 2012

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (a Republican) continues to get pushback on his plan to “spread the wealth around” by increasing taxes on the shale drilling industry and giving Ohio residents a cut in their state income tax. The pushback is now coming from conservative groups, including the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Tax Reform.

Earlier this month, a tea party-backed group called Ohio Rising started circulating an anti-tax pledge among Ohio lawmakers against the Kasich plan.

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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Supply Chain

New Utica Supply Chain Website for Ohio Businesses
August 21, 2012August 21, 2012

A new online service displays more than 700 companies in a 12-county region of Ohio that provide services and supplies to the Utica and Marcellus Shale drilling industry on an interactive map. The Ohio Shale Energy “supply chain” website provides a valuable service for businesses looking to plug in to the ever-expanding energy industry in Ohio.

Now that the site is up and running, there are plans to expand it to cover the entire state.

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Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

OH State Geologist: New Utica Map Coming in September
August 20, 2012August 20, 2012

Ohio’s official state geologist, Larry Wickstrom, chief of the ODNR’s Division of Geological Survey, was fired in May because he updated and released a map showing new boundaries for the Utica Shale and where the best places to drill would be located (see this MDN story). The update caused some of the previous lines to change, and that upset a few people (especially Larry’s political bosses). Mac Swinford has taken his place as interim state geologist. Swinford says a new version of the map will be released in September. Let’s hope he fares better than Wickstrom in navigating the politics of science.

Swinford has given us a heads-up of what the new map will show:

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