Pipelines - Are they coming our way?

Spectra Energy Corp., DTE Energy and Embridge Inc. announced Sept. 4 they want to build a 250-mile pipeline that extends from northeastern Ohio to Michigan at a cost of $1.9 billion.

Workers operating earthmoving equipment were busy Sept. 13 clearing land atop a large hill near the intersection of state Route 644 and Hagan Road in Hanover Township. In May, the 117-acre site sold for $1.8 million to Utica East Midstream Ohio LLC, according to courthouse records.

“People don’t know how big this is,” said a passerby who lives in Hanoverton, a mile north of the site. “I’ve been watching them for about a month, and they’re moving fast.”

 

MarkWest has secured a major customer with Oklahoma City-based Gulfport Energy Corp., which has also been active drilling wells in the western portion of Harrison County,. A pipeline leading west of the MarkWest project is directed toward gathering lines under construction related to Gulfport’s well sites, he says.

“That pipeline is of great urgency,” Millicent says.

Last month, Gulfport announced the initial results of some of its wells in southeastern Ohio, the most productive of which is the Wagner 1-28H well in the northwestern corner of the county.

The Wagner well recorded a peak rate of 4,650 barrels of oil equivalent per day, outperforming by far Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Buell well, also in Harrison County. By comparison, Buell registered a peak rate of 3,010 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

“Gulfport had to put a small-scale processor at that [Wagner] well,” Millicent says, and underscores the need to finish the MarkWest complex. “They wanted to get it into production as quickly as possible. The other wells are just waiting for the pipeline to get there.”

There are four major oil and gas companies active in Harrison County, the most prolific leaseholder being Chesapeake. Gulfport owns a sizeable lease position in the western and southern portions of the county, Hess Energy, under a joint venture with Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy, has acreage mostly in the eastern part of Harrison, while Chevron is drilling its first well in the west.

“They’re all still trying to figure it out,” Millicent remarks, “but there seems to be a notion that Harrison County is blessed to be right in the fairway of the wet gas play.”

The county, home to just 15,000 people and two working stoplights, was at one time a bustling coal-mining region. Just outside Cadiz, the largest strip mine in Ohio, owned by Oxford Resource Partners, sits on land just north of the MarkWest project.

 

 Youngstown Business Journal