$70M Oil Terminal Planned for Ohio Commerce Center
LORDSTOWN, Ohio -- Banking heavily on a future payout in oil and condensate from the Utica shale, Houston-based Halcon Resources Corp. is planning to develop a $70 million oil storage and rail loading terminal at the Ohio Commerce Center, officials say.
"In a nutshell, it would be an offload facility until pipelines are in place," says Dave Harrison, Lordstown's planning and zoning administrator.
Representatives of Halcon Field Services, a Halcon subsidiary, appeared before the village planning and zoning commission July 8 to request a variance that would allow it to build above-ground tanks to store petroleum products, Harrison says.
The terminal would make it possible for Halcon and other operators to ship oil produced from Utica wells via rail to the Gulf and East coasts.
Harrison said the Ohio Commerce Center is nearing completion of a refurbished loop track capable of handling 100-car unit trains. The proposed complex could load four cars at a time, he said.
"It would take about 12 hours to load a unit train," Harrison notes.
Halcon considered other sites, but the Ohio Commerce Center presented the best opportunity because it encompasses nearly 500 acres and is zoned industrial, Harrison says. Halcon Operating Co. holds four horizontal drilling permits in Vienna, Hartford and Warren townships and in Lordstown.
A fact sheet Halcon distributed states the project would be built in three phases, the initial phase targeted for completion sometime in 2014. Halcon projects some 50 jobs would be created during the construction while another 30 full-time positions would be needed to operate the terminal.
The terminal would encompass four bay truck racks, a rail loading platform capable of handling 20 cars, six storage tanks and three condensate stabilizers.
The stabilizers capture condensate that otherwise would burn, the smoke dispersed into the atmosphere, and instead converts that condensate into marketable products.
Halcon's plan is to unload about 12 trucks per hour at the site. The volume of truck traffic, however, would depend on production levels from nearby wells and the overall market.
"It's a natural progression of what we started here," says Dan Crouse, agent for Routh-Hurlbert, the Warren-based leasing agent for the Ohio Commerce Park. "We've put in the loop track, and this is the kind of thing we've planned all along."
The project is still in its early stages, Crouse says, as is development of the Utica shale, a rock formation 8,000 feet below eastern Ohio that energy companies are targeting to extract wet gas and oil.
"There are a number of things to this," Crouse continues. "Taking into account the full spectrum of liquids coming out of the ground, it could change how much is needed."
It would take between six and eight months to secure the air permits needed, he relates, as well as perform the initial development and engineering.
"We're really excited about this," Crouse says. "We have a lot of work to do, but I think we should see stuff happening soon."
Crouse adds that companies not connected with oil and gas development have been inquiring about sites across northeastern Ohio. "We are aggressively generating a lot of prospects -- not just oil and gas -- but companies looking for low-cost utilities," he says. "There's lots of activity."
Copyright 2013 by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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