The energy sector will play a crucial role in the future of Ohio’s economic development, industry leaders and politicians agree, especially as petrochemical and gas-powered energy plants come online in the coming years.
Since the beginning of the exploration in the Utica shale in 2006, the economic value added of the energy industry in Ohio has totalled $37.9 billion, according to the executive director of the Consumer Energy Alliance’s mid-Atlantic region, Mike Butler. When considering only the activity related to shale exploration, some 700 new businesses have been started statewide and investment from the sector has totaled $63.9 billion.
“We’re in the center of this incredible shale revolution in the Appalachian region with an incredible opportunity. We haven’t seen this type of opportunity since really the birth of the steel industry,” Butler said. “What’s coming down the pike in the natural-gas revolution, the downstream development in the infrastructure and pipelines being built, ultimately results in projects like the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County [Pennsylvania] and petrochemical facilities in Belmont County, Ohio.”
Diversified Gas & Oil Plc (DGOC) owns and operates gas and oil producing wells in the Appalachian Basin in the United States. The Company’s operations are based in the neighbouring states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, which cover part of the largest and oldest hydrocarbon producing field in the US, known as the Appalachian Basin.