The Daily Digger

From the Journal-News: NTE Energy officially opened its $600 million Middletown Energy Center today.  NTE Energy’s new power plant near the intersection of Cincinnati-Dayton and Oxford State roads is part of a nationwide natural gas boom.  The facility will be able to generate 475 megawatts of electricity, enough energy for 400,000 homes, according to company officials.  The Middletown Energy Center will be among the cleanest and most efficient natural gas fired power plants in the United States, company officials have said. Click here to view the original article. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

New permits issued last week:   7   (Previous week:  1 )  +6 Total horizontal permits issued:  2834   (Previous week:  2830 )  +4 Total horizontal wells drilled:  2357  (Previous week:  2348 )  +9 Total horizontal wells producing:  1901  (Previous week:  1898 )  +3 Utica rig count:  20  (Previous week:  20 )   +-0 Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

by Jackie Stewart, Energy in Depth It’s all hands on deck to spread the word that when it comes to jobs, Ohio is hiring — and it’s largely due to the fact that the gross state product is approaching $100 billion thanks largely to shale investments,  according to JobsOhio . The upward trajectory of shale-related employment comes as no surprise, considering the latest federal government  data  show oil and gas activities led to the strongest statewide economic gains in 2017. This reality has led to headlines in Ohio reporting that  hundreds of jobs are currently available  in the Appalachian region. In response and in preparation for the surge in available jobs, the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) recently unveiled a series of 28 modern career videos highlighting more than 75 in-demand jobs associated with shale development. The goal? To address the supply and demand issues created by the surge of “in-demand” jobs which require well trained ...

From the Weirton Daily Times: James W. Wilson, Utica operations area lead for Hess Corp., with a Steubenville presence at 4525 Sunset Blvd., was the May 8 guest speaker at the Steubenville Kiwanis Club’s noon luncheon meeting held at the YWCA of Steubenville. Wilson, who was introduced by Kiwanian George Pugh, May program chair, is a native of North Dakota who has spent most of his career with a small independent oil company engaged in the drilling of small exploration projects and the acquisition of existing producing properties mostly in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. He has been with Hess Corp. since 2010 and recently transferred to Ohio to manage Ohio operations.  Hess is a Fortune 500 company, Wilson explained, with safety as its No. 1 priority; the environment as No. 2; and production as No. 3.  “In production we make about in the mid 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day throughout the world,” Williams said. “We are an international company. We’ve got ...

New permits issued last week:   1   (Previous week:  10 )  -9 Total horizontal permits issued:  2830   (Previous week:  2830 )  +-0 Total horizontal wells drilled:  2348  (Previous week:  2346 )  +2 Total horizontal wells producing:  1898  (Previous week:  1890 )  +8 Utica rig count:  20  (Previous week:  21 )   -1 Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: After months of trying to find another way, Rex Energy Corp. is filing for bankruptcy.  The State College-based oil and gas company whose major holdings are leases and shale wells in Butler County, disclosed in its quarterly report with the Securities & Exchange Commission that it could not come to an agreement with its lenders after missing a debt payment in late April.  Rex said it would be seeking protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code imminently.  As of the end of last year, the company had 105 full-time employees. Only 17 of them work in the field as Rex uses independent contractors and consultants to do a lot of the drilling, fracking and associated work.  Founded in 2007, Rex has been shedding assets and looking for capital for some time now. Last year, it sold a substantial portion of its Ohio acreage to Antero Resources Corp. Earlier this year, it sold its interest in wells in Westmoreland, Centre a...

From Kallanish Energy: The shale industry has invested $63.9 billion in Ohio as of mid-2017, according to a JobsOhio official.  That private sector investment in the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio started in 2011, Dana A. Saucier Jr., senior managing director, Energy and Chemicals, Food & Agribusiness,said in an interview in Smart Business.  The $63.9 billion total includes upstream, midstream and downstream investments, Kallanish Energy reports.  To date, Ohio has permitted 2,830 Utica wells, of which 2,346 have been drilled and 1,890 are producing.  “Those looking to invest in Ohio’s shale opportunity have confidence in the state and the business environment it fosters,” he said. “The prevailing sentiment is that it’s an attractive place to deploy capital.”  Pipelines to move natural gas to market have brought “an uptick in additional investment in the last 12 months of around $10 billion,” he said. Read more by clicking here. Connect with us o...