American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2020 - 66

ConventionSection: Ohio Oil & Gas Association
Strong Plugging
This year, OOGA will continue to
urge the state to utilize more funds to
plug orphaned and abandoned wells,
Hammond reports. HB 225, which state
lawmakers passed in 2018, requires
DNR to spend at least 30% of Ohio's
Oil and Gas Well Fund on orphan well
plugging, he points out, with the bill
appropriating $15 million for that purpose in fiscal 2019.

"In any historical oil and gas producing
state, orphaned wells are an issue, and
we are working with the division to meet
the statutory requirement sooner rather
than later," Hammond says.
While OOGA wants to hasten plugging, Ohio may be the envy of neighboring Appalachian Basin states when
it comes to well-plugging resources,
Downey suggests.
"West Virginia and Pennsylvania are

begging for money to do that," he says.
"Neither of those states has a mechanism
like Ohio does, but ours is not being utilized to its fullest extent. More plugging
activity in Ohio would be an economic
shot in the arm, because we could hire
more contractors and put more people to
work plugging these wells, which also
would be good for the environment."
The association also has an eye on
House Joint Resolution 2, which would
limit foreign ownership of facilities
deemed critical infrastructure, including
power plants, Downey says, adding that
the bill was a point of contention among
lawmakers in the fall.
Positive Change
According to Downey, the association
and the industry it represents enjoy a
strong working relationship with Governor
Mike DeWine, who began his term in
January 2019. That contrasts with his
predecessor, John Kasich, who used the
position to call for severance tax hikes.
Moreover, while Kasich never appointed
staff to the Ohio Oil and Gas Leasing
Commission that was created to promote
leasing of state lands for oil and gas
drilling, DeWine has appointed commission members, and the panel has conducted
several meetings, Hammond observes.
As a starter for opening state lands,
the association suggests operators should
be able to acquire subsurface easements
for units that include some property
owned by the Ohio Department of Transportation and other agencies, and obtain
drilling rights on other acreage agencies
have acquired but not developed, he says.
One example, Hammond offers, is land
in southeastern Ohio-including surface
and mineral rights-that ODOT acquired
as part of a project to widen Ohio 151,
which was later abandoned, Hammond
explains. Operators' inability to lease those
tracts during the Kasich administration
convinced them not to lease adjoining
tracts, which effectively squelched mineral
owners' economic opportunity, he says.
The commission has much to do before
state lands leasing begins, Downey assesses, but he expresses hope the commission eventually will focus on leasing
larger tracts that can accelerate interest
in drilling.
Meanwhile, Downey reports, early
2020 saw OOGA members benefitting
from provisions of HB 166, which passed
in 2019. Among other provisions, the
new law eliminates the minimum sever-

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2020

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