Ohio Consortium Makes a Play to Attract $2 Billion Hydrogen Hub
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form intrastate working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see WV, OH, PA Compete Against Each Other to Attract $2B Hydrogen Hub). The new law provides $8 billion for four regional hydrogen hubs. We’ve previously told you about the efforts launched by both PA and WV to land a hydrogen hub. We now have more details about the Ohio Clean Hydrogen Hub Alliance, a consortium of Ohio businesses, nonprofits, public officials, and universities seeking to do the same for the Buckeye State.
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Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form intrastate working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see 
Last Friday the Utica Energy Alliance (UEA), which represents hundreds of landowners, businesses, community leaders and allies of the shale industry, sent a letter to the entire Ohio Congressional delegation asking the state’s Senators and Congresspeople to stand behind the U.S. initiative to support the European Union by promoting Ohio’s (and the entire Marcellus/Utica region’s) production of natural gas. The UEA says using American natgas is the only way for Europe to end reliance on Russian energy and put an end to funding Putin’s war machine. The group requested a written response from each member. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a response from U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.
On Monday MDN brought you big news from Bloomberg that Gulfport Energy is in talks with Ascent Resources to merge (see 
PTT Global Chemical has reimbursed JobsOhio, the state’s private economic development office, $20 million for failing to make a final investment decision (FID) to build a multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker plant project in Belmont County, OH. JobsOhio paid Bechtel Corp. $20 million in 2019 to complete site engineering and site preparation for the project, with a promise from PTT that it would soon make an FID and move forward with construction. That never happened, so PTT is paying up because it didn’t live up to its end of the bargain. Interestingly, PTT maintains it is “committed to building the multi-billion dollar project.” Right.
It’s been about 3½ years since Encino Energy in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board closed on buying Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio Utica assets for $2 billion (see 
Public company Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy less than a year ago, in May 2021, with a new board and new top management (see 
In the early days of the Marcellus and Utica Shale, a number of studies and predictions were made about how the industry would bring tens of thousands of jobs and inject billions of dollars into state economies. In Ohio, a Cleveland State University (CSU) report issued in 2012 predicted that Ohio’s then-growing fracking industry would add 66,000 direct and indirect jobs and $5 billion a year to the state’s economy by the end of 2014 (see 
Last November MDN told you about a brand new organization called the Utica Energy Alliance (see 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill. The new law provides $8 billion for four regional hubs. It’s a safe bet one of those hubs will be located in either PA, OH, or WV. The race is now on to attract that investment money. On Friday, WV’s new Hydrogen Hub Working Group held its first meeting to plot a strategy to snag the project. However, PA and OH are in the hunt too, with their own dedicated groups.
Part of the so-called Biden infrastructure bill (now a law) provides $4.7 billion to plug old abandoned and orphan oil and gas wells. We previously reported on initial payments from the program for both Pennsylvania and West Virginia. When we spotted an even higher number for Ohio’s portion of that program, we smelled that something is wrong, and indeed it is. We will explain below.
Last year Big Green lobbyists using the City of Oberlin, Ohio contested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to approve the Enbridge/DTE Energy NEXUS pipeline, a a $2 billion, 255-mile pipeline from the Ohio Utica Shale into Michigan that’s been flowing for years connecting to a pipeline that exports some of the gas into Canada (see 
In late 2020, ExxonMobil released the outlines of its development plan for the next five years (see 
Our friends at NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) are running an excellent series providing expert forecasts for the global natural gas and oil markets in 2022. The latest installment interviews several experts about the prospects for the Marcellus/Utica. With the Shell ethane cracker plant coming online sometime this year, the prospects for NGL sales in the M-U have picked up. Also in the discussion: capping Pennsylvania’s orphaned wells, drilling in the Wayne National Forest, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline coming online.