ATEX Express Ethane Pipeline Hits Potential Snag in Ohio
Enterprise Products Partners recently announced a 1,230 mile ethane pipeline from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast (see this MDN story). Dubbed the ATEX Express (Appalachia to Texas), the proposed pipeline includes building 353 miles of new pipeline through Ohio. But the Ohio stretch of construction has hit a potential snag.
Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) officials say Enterprise must get their approval before building it, but Enterprise disputes the OPSB has the authority to oversee construction the ATEX Express in the state. The dispute hinges on whether the natural gas liquid ethane that will flow through the pipeline is a liquid or a gas. Ethane under pressure is a liquid, but when it hits the air, it turns into a gas.
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Under pressure from low commodity prices for natural gas causing a cash deficit for drilling, Chesapeake Energy is looking to sell off some of its oil and gas fields in Texas, Mexico and Oklahoma so it can continue to concentrate on drilling in eastern Ohio’s Utica Shale and other “wet gas” areas of the country.
West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are all in the hunt to land an ethane cracker plant in their respective states (see the 
Competition to attract an ethane cracker plant is heating up. West Virginia has made no bones that they intend to be the winners of the investment that will be made to build an ethane cracker plant to be built by Shell. The plant will cost upward of $2 billion and will create thousands of jobs to build the plant, operate the plant, and just as importantly, in the industries that will locate near the plant once it’s operational. It’s an economic jackpot worth $5 billion or more, and those who are in the game to attract it are in it to win.
In a year-end “media gathering” with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the governor recounted his administration’s accomplishments for his first 12 months in office, and then he turned his sights on 2012. At the top of his agenda for next year? Drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shales.