Q&A: Ohio Chamber’s Jennifer Klein on the fledgling Ohio Shale Coalition

You kicked off the Ohio Shale Coalition on June 13. What’s its purpose?

It’s an educational outreach and grassroots organization. It’s not about advocacy, but is to educate about the economic development opportunities and job creation opportunities from drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shale. One reason we’ve helped facilitate this is that in talking to our members about the shale plays, as well as the administration and the Department of Natural Resources -- and looking at what other states have done in terms of pulling together coalitions -- there needed to be something that was very broad based that didn’t just include the oil and gas industry but included the midstream and downstream sectors. Your steel and chemical and plastic companies, for example. You’ve also got your hotels, restaurants, and others down the supply chain that benefit from shale drilling. As well as pulling in state and local governments and economic development entities.

How many are in the coalition right now?

It’s not formalized just yet, but I’ve got a data base of several hundred people. At our last meeting we had approximately 110 people attend, so it’s very broad and big.

Are you going to narrow that down or open it to all comers?

Anyone who has an interest in being at the table and educating about the positive economic benefits of drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shale, we certainly are open to that. So it’s a very broad group of people, and we’re pulling in local governments, county commissioners, townships, municipalities to bring them into the process. There’s such a vast opportunity here, but there’s an education process that needs to take place and the more that are participating in that the better. The first primary step that the coalition took was to get an economic impact study going similar to what has been done in other states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania. We’ve been stealing numbers from them and extrapolating numbers, so we said we’ve got to get Ohio-specific numbers and look at the job creation opportunities for Ohio.

Who’s conducting the study and when will it be available?

Our study is being done by Cleveland State University, The Ohio State University and Marietta College. The goal is to have preliminary results at the Governor’s Energy Summit on Sept. 21, and those will be very very preliminary. But the study is scheduled to be complete by the end of the year.

Chesapeake Energy has quantified what its leases are worth (the company says its 1.25 million leased acres in the Utica play could be worth $15 - $20 billion), but that’s only one company. Are you going to have access to the kind of information that Chesapeake Energy has put out there voluntarily?

Absolutely. Similar to what you do with any of these impact studies, the universities have created a survey that they send out to the impacted businesses and industries asking them questions, and we’re certainly working along with others within the Ohio Shale Coalition to assure that they’re getting sufficient response to those surveys. Everyone wants to see this study succeed, so I’m not concerned that we’re not going to get responses to the surveys.

Groups like the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association are doing public affairs work and community outreach already. How are your efforts different?

Those groups are a part of this as well, but it’s about reaching out even further. When you hear about shale drilling, you think about the immediate benefits for the oil and gas industry and energy prices. But as you get further into the supply chain and realize how many people are involved and how many folks can be positively impacted and jobs that can be created from this, you need to include them as well. There’s a story that isn’t being told, so this is an opportunity for all of those who will benefit to be telling the same story and giving out the same messaging. And  Various industry sectors are doing their own sort of work, but this is an opportunity to get together and share information so others can utilize it as well. 

Will you be going out into communities and meeting with residents who might be concerned with their drinking water, or whatever it might be?

Those are things we're talking about doing after we get the economic impact study completed. So those are all things that need to be figured out, but right now we’re talking to local chambers, we’re talking with reporters, we’re talking to whoever we can but we certainly expect that to expand as we get more information to share.

V&M Star is attributing a $650-million expansion to the availability of nearby shale gas. Columbia Gas is investing in a new pipeline. What kind of buzz are you hearing from other Ohio companies who might benefit?

They’re keeping it pretty tightly under wraps, but there’s a chemical company that is looking at building a new cracking facility and they’re looking at Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. So, they’re looking at where they’re going to have an abundant supply and a resource, and that’s going to be where the shale drilling is taking place. You have opportunities like that. I think other fuel companies see opportunities. A plastics association that I spoke with is very interested in what’s going on and what’s going to be happening with the shale drilling. The aggregates industry. . . you need rocks and cement for the sites, and so the aggregates industry sees expansion opportunities.

What do you see as the main challenges in moving ahead to maximize the potential of Ohio shale?

Getting everyone to understand what the reality is. Within anything we do there is some inherent risk but here in Ohio . . . we really ramped up our environmental regulations in preparation for drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shale, and we’re really ahead of the curve. Yet there’s a perception that the state is not prepared for this drilling. I think there’s some misinformation around the hydraulic fracturing process and so I think there’s just a real opportunity to let people know what this really is and what this could really mean for them in their daily lives in terms of employment numbers, putting food on their table, education opportunities through their community colleges and four-year colleges. The question is, can we minimize those risks? And we think we have through (state laws).