FirstEnergy Admits to $61M Payment in Massive Bribery Scandal
Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 6 is a law granting billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy in an attempt to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy is accused of bribing state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million (see FirstEnergy Involved in Bribery Scheme to Pass $1B Nuke Bailout Law). It is the biggest bribery scandal in Ohio history. FirstEnergy is finally, openly, admitting they paid the bribe money. Yet the company still refuses to admit that what they did is a crime.
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Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 update earlier this week. According to Ascent CEO Jeff Fisher, “Ascent has successfully delivered on its operational and financial objectives in 2020.” Ascent reports it shut-in (curtailed) roughly 100 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d) of production in 4Q. The company produced 1.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfe/d) during 4Q, down from 2 Bcfe/d in 3Q.
Here’s a company we’ve not written about since 2016: IOG Capital. Back in 2015 we first told you that IOG Capital had cut a deal with Seneca Resources to fund Seneca’s Marcellus drilling program in Elk, McKean and Cameron counties in northcentral Pennsylvania (see 
Summit Midstream Partners, formed in 2009 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, operates natural gas, crude oil, and produced water gathering (pipeline) systems in several unconventional shale plays, including the Marcellus and Utica. Last week Summit issued its fourth-quarter (and full-year) 2020 update. One thing was obvious: The company’s Utica Shale segment was the star performer in 4Q and for the entire year.
There is finally movement in Ohio to repeal an odious law passed by Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature called House Bill 6, which funnels over $1 billion from Ohio ratepayers to FirstEnergy Corporation in order to keep the company’s unprofitable nuclear power plants running (while disadvantaging other power sources, like gas-fired plants). FirstEnergy is accused of bribing legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $60 million in bribes (see 
The pandemic did its best to shut the world down, and maybe it succeeded in shutting down other countries–but not here in the US of A. Against an onslaught of shutdowns (particularly in “blue” states), people staying home, businesses closing, anarchy and chaos in large Democrat cities…and against an onslaught against fossil fuels by environmental Nazis seeking to destroy the economies of the world via bans of oil and natural gas and coal…U.S. natural gas production decreased by just 1 percent last year. Can you believe it? That’s a victory in our book!
Aubrey McClendon, the co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and the guy most responsible for discovering and commercializing the Ohio Utica Shale, once famously said the Utica “is the best thing to hit the state of Ohio economically since maybe the plow.” And indeed it has been. The Utica is often overshadowed by its larger and more productive cousin the Marcellus Shale. According to Mike Chadsey from the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, the Utica has never really gotten the level of attention and respect it deserves.
On Friday, representatives of a “dark money” political action committee called Generation Now signed a guilty plea admitting their part in the biggest bribery scandal to ever hit Ohio. Generation Now was set up as a social welfare nonprofit but in reality was a shell organization that received “tens of millions of dollars” from FirstEnergy as part of a $61 million bribery scandal to pass and keep passed House Bill (HB) 6 which funnels over $1 billion from Ohio ratepayers to FirstEnergy in order to keep the company’s unprofitable nuclear power plants running.
On Joe Biden’s first day in occupying the White House, he signed an Executive Order (EO) suspending new oil and gas leasing while the Interior Department reviews existing leases and permitting practices for 60 days. The aim is to make the federal lease ban permanent. However, some permits on existing leases will continue to be issued during the 60-day review period. You may think Biden’s federal lease ban does not affect the Marcellus/Utica region. You would be wrong.
In 2016 a group of business and government leaders from Ohio and West Virginia in the Mid-Ohio Valley banded together to form an economic development group called Shale Crescent USA, or SCUSA (see 
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost continues to hammer FirstEnergy Corporation. In November Yost filed a lawsuit to block the collection of $150 million provided for under House Bill (HB) 6, aimed at propping up FirstEnergy’s unprofitable nuclear power plants in the state (see 
The Enverus U.S. oil and gas rig count slipped by one to 406 over the past week. The Marcellus play stayed even with 32 active rigs. However, in a good sign, the Ohio Utica picked up 2 new rigs to close the week with 8 active rigs (total of 40 active rigs in the M-U).