Partnership Celebrates Carroll County's New Energy Facility

From the time the Stark Carroll Oil & Gas Partnership was formed, a key member and sponsor has been the East Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council. This leading association of more than 20 building trades unions from six Northeast Ohio counties has been an active supporter of the oil and gas industry in Ohio and an important member of the Partnership since it was founded.

Partnership Chairman Dave Kirven (second from left)
assists with the CCE plant groundbreaking July 21

The organization helped celebrate a milestone occasion on July 21 when Dave Kirven, president of the council, who also serves as business agent for Plumbers & Pipefitters Local No. 94 and as chairman of the Stark Carroll Oil & Gas Partnership, participated with other union and state officials at the groundbreaking for the $899 Carroll County Energy (CCE) facility, a 700 megawatt, natural gas-fired power plant in Carrollton.

In addition to other incentives, Advanced Power, the project’s developer, agreed to use local vendors for products and services, and agreed to a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with the East Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council.

According to an article by Matt Jaworski in the Labor Citizen, an official building and trades publication, the project is expected to employ about 700 workers at its peak, “with roughly half of the jobs going to pipefitters and boilermakers.”

“While the bulk of the workers will not be on the jobsite until 2016,” Jaworski wrote, “the work could not have come at a better time for area construction unions that started to see a slowdown in the oil and natural gas sector.”

Kirven pointed out that the unions offer a tremendous advantage in finding enough skilled tradesmen for any size job.

“In addition to the locals in the immediate area, there are more than 300 unions nationwide to draw from,” he said.

The Union Labor Life Insurance Company (Ullico), a labor-owned insurance and investment company, is a minority equity investor in the CCE project. Ullico investments are backed by the pension funds of unions such as the building trades.

According to information on the Ullico website, the CCE will generate direct economic impact of $655 million in Carroll County, and an indirect impact of more than $60 million through the purchase of local supplies and services.

This article also appeared in ShaleMart's print and online editions.