Sloooow OH O&G Land Management Commission Gets a Kick in the Pants
The Ohio Oil and Gas Leasing Commission, established in 2011 by a law signed by RINO Gov. John Kasich, is a five-member group designed to oversee drilling and fracking on state-owned land. After Kasich created it, he refused to appoint members, for years, to punish the oil and gas industry for not endorsing his plan to raise the severance tax rate. In 2017, under threat by the Republican legislature, Kasich finally relented and appointed the five members (see Ohio Gov Kasich About to Lose Power to Stop Drilling on State Land). Since that time, the commissioners have pretty much sat on their hands. That’s about to change.
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U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, Republican Congressman from Ohio’s 6th congressional district (in the Utica Shale part of the state), has introduced his first bill of the new session of Congress. The bill is called the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act. It will allow domestic suppliers of natural gas, including LNG, to export our gas to allies in Europe and Asia after completing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) review process only–cutting out a requirement to have the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) also approve it. The DOE approval takes much longer (years) and has been a choke point. It’s time to end the delays. It’s time to get rid of the weakest link.
In February 2022, Equitrans Midstream announced it had filed a new pipeline expansion project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
The Marcellus/Utica region is becoming a booming real estate market and manufacturing destination in the U.S., with manufacturing investment currently estimated at over $100 billion, according to Bryce Custer from NAI Spring Commercial Realty. What’s drawing manufacturers to the M-U region? Geopolitical instability, supply chain disruption, the reshoring trend, and abundant raw materials, including cheap (and clean) M-U natural gas.
Chip manufacturing giant Intel has committed to building two semiconductor factories in New Albany, Ohio, making a huge investment of over $20 billion. It is the largest economic development project in Ohio’s history. Amazing! The two plants will need natural gas, lots of it. So local utility company Columbia Gas of Ohio has proposed building a new 4.2-mile, 12-inch pipeline to the facility. The pipeline will be constructed within public road rights-of-way within Delaware County, Licking County, and Franklin County, as well as in the City of New Albany. Columbia is requesting expedited state approval (and is likely to get it).
Listen up, high school seniors (and their parents). Paying for college is a challenge–this you will learn soon enough. As your guidance counselor has no doubt told you, there are scholarships to be had. Every $500 or $1,000 you can shave off your college bill helps! String enough such scholarships together, and you can make a real dent in the cost of college. We have a scholarship opportunity for those who plan to pursue a career in the oil and gas industry living in Ohio. The Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) is accepting applications for its 
PJM is the largest electric grid operator in the U.S. It serves 65 million people in 13 states plus the District of Columbia (including PA, OH, and WV). PJM is coming under criticism for an almost-blackout during the recent Christmas cold snap. If not for certain gas-fired peaker plants, like that in the Little Town of Bethlehem, the lights would have gone out during a brutal cold snap (see 
Yesterday we told you that the Pennsylvania-blessed effort by Shell and Equinor to build (at taxpayers’ expense) a so-called hydrogen hub in PA has received the Dept. of Energy’s blessing (“encouragement”) to submit a full application (see 
We love this story because it’s driving the left NUTS! In December, we told you about Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 (subsequently passed), a bill that expands drilling in Ohio state parks AND officially designates natural gas as a “green” form of energy (see 
JobsOhio, a private nonprofit largely funded by liquor sales that the state allows the nonprofit to collect (in essence, it collects sales tax on liquor sales), pays Cleveland State University to research and issue a report every six months on Utica Shale investment. The latest semi-annual report (full copy below) covers shale investment in the Ohio Utica from July 2021 through December 2021. Here’s an astonishing statistic: With this latest report, total Utica Shale investment in the state of Ohio since 2011 is nearly $100 billion!
In 2020, EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in Trinidad and China), sold *all* of its Marcellus assets, which were located in Bradford County, PA, to Tilden Resources for $130 million (see 
Since the so-called Biden infrastructure bill became law late last year with $8 billion earmarked for so-called clean hydrogen hubs to be funded around the country, we’ve made the strong and loud point that unless the Marcellus/Utica states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia join forces and submit a joint proposal to site one of the 6-10 regional hubs here, we risk losing out to other regional coalitions. It seems someone is finally listening. Until now, each M-U state has proffered its own plan/application for a hydrogen hub (see 
Two days ago, MDN told you about Ohio House Bill (HB) 507, a “poultry” bill that (at the last minute) was amended by the Ohio Senate to redesignate natural gas as a “green” energy source and also a measure expanding drilling on and under state-owned land (see 
There are advantages and disadvantages to being publicly or privately owned. In the oil and gas sector, most large companies are publicly owned–meaning they have a board of directors, and the “owners” hold shares of stock in the company, shares traded on public exchanges. In the Marcellus/Utica, most of the top drillers are publicly owned: Range Resources, Coterra Energy, CNX Resources, EQT Corporation, Antero Resources, Southwestern Energy, Repsol, National Fuel Gas Company (i.e. Seneca Resources), and Gulfport Energy. Several others are privately owned, including Ascent Resources (Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S.), Greylock Energy (based in West Virginia), and Olympus Energy (which drills in the Pittsburgh suburbs).