Shell’s massive plastics plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, started operations in late 2022

From LIVING ON EARTH, National Public Radio, Air Date: Week of June 30, 2023

Shell’s massive new ethane cracker plant in western Pennsylvania is sending polluted air and strange smells into the surrounding community. But a $10 million fine pales in comparison to the roughly $100 million a day that the company made in profits in the first quarter of 2023. Reid Frazier of the Allegheny Front discusses with Host Paloma Beltran the concerns of residents and a promised economic boom that hasn’t materialized.

TRANSCRIPT ~ BELTRAN: And I’m Paloma Beltran.

Even before it came online last year, the huge plastics plant Shell built on the banks of the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania had problems with pollution. The plant is an “ethane cracker” that uses fracked gas to produce the common plastic called polyethylene, and it’s violated air quality rules and sent strange smells into the surrounding community. And although it has brought new jobs, a recent report from the nonprofit Ohio River Valley Institute suggests it hasn’t ushered in the economic boom that some anticipated. In May, Pennsylvania’s governor announced that Shell will pay a $10 million fine for its air quality violations. But that fine pales in comparison to the roughly $100 million a day that Shell made in profits in the first quarter of 2023. And the plant received a $1.65 billion tax credit over 25 years, the largest in Pennsylvania history.

BELTRAN: So, this Shell plant has been in the works for a long time. Can you describe it for us? How big is it, and how much plastic does it produce?

FRAZIER: It’s basically like a small city that they built to make plastic, there on the banks of the Ohio. At the top capacity, it will be able to make over three billion pounds of plastic every year. The greenhouse gas emissions from this facility are estimated to be the equivalent of 400 thousand cars on the road. So, it’s a pretty big greenhouse gas emitter, it’ll probably be, you know, one of the top few facilities in the state in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

BELTRAN: Wow. And in May, you reported that Shell agreed to pay a $10 million fine after emissions from the plant violated state air quality rules. What were the violations, and what will the money be used

FRAZIER: Right, so the violations were for exceeding their state permit-allowed air pollution, essentially. They were allowed to pollute about 500 tons a year of volatile organic compounds. They basically exceeded that in September of 2022, when they had a lot of flaring, there were sort of equipment malfunctions, and when those malfunctions take place, they basically flare the gas as a way to get rid of it. And so that the gas doesn’t accumulate and cause an explosion. But when you do that you get rid of a lot of the pollution, but not all of it. So, in one month, they essentially hit their 12-month quota, even before the plant had started. And they’ve exceeded similar limits for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, in subsequent months. And they’ve had other problems with air pollution. There was a release that caused benzene and volatile organic compounds to spike a couple months ago, workers reported headaches and irritation in their eyes, according to the company. There have just been a lot of problems. So, the state rolled all of these violations together into a $10 million fine. About half of the money goes to the state and half goes to the local area municipalities and such presumably to be done in — used in a sort of environmentally friendly or civic-minded way, but we don’t actually know what the money is going to be used for.

BELTRAN: Reid, you’ve been covering this project for a long time, and you’ve spoken to lots of people in Beaver County. How have community members responded to the plant?

FRAZIER: Well, obviously, a lot of people are upset that there is this ongoing pollution problem. I think most people hope that the company will clean its act up. There is a sort of acknowledgement that when you open up a big plant like this, there’s bound to be problems as you start bringing equipment online. That having been said, I think people were surprised by how much pollution has come from this plant. Even people who were big supporters of Shell coming to Beaver County. I talked to Jack Manning, who’s a Beaver County commissioner, so it’s like the local governing board. He actually used to work in the petrochemical industry in Beaver County. He’s basically said he’s still going to be supporting Shell, but they simply have to clean their act up. And these are his words.

MANNING: Well, I’ve also told people, if you cross a line that shouldn’t be crossed, we’re going to have a different conversation. And I can’t, I can’t defend you. And right now, nobody’s crossed that

FRAZIER: Other people are more upset, parents who’ve taken their kids to school on days when there were high benzene levels, and were understandably freaked out by the smell of gasoline in their backyard. That’s what one person told me. Somebody else reported that it smelled like burning plastic. And I think more than anything, ‘Wait, is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life, if I stay here?’ This is the thought that a lot of people are having. But if you live like five miles away, you probably don’t experience this. And, they’re glad to see that there’s a plant with 600 workers there, and maybe they have friends or relatives who are working there or worked to build it and made a lot of money in construction. During the five or six years when it was under construction, there were something like six-to-eight thousand people working on it. So, it’s a mixed bag. I think the closer you are to the plant, the more you’re, worried about it.

BELTRAN: Of course, I mean, who wants to be smelling chemicals every day in their backyard? Some fossil fuel companies are looking to increase their foothold in the plastics industry as the world moves towards cleaner sources of energy. Is that pivot happening at all in Beaver County, or in Pennsylvania more generally?

FRAZIER: That remains to be seen. I think the Shell plant itself is an example of that pivot that you just described, where oil and gas companies are trying to figure out what they’re going to do in the next few decades, if people largely give up, gas-driven cars and such. And petrochemicals are a growing business still. There were plans for more of these to be built in the greater Ohio Valley region. There was one project that was on the docket in eastern Ohio. To date, it hasn’t been built, it hasn’t been approved. We’ll see if that changes in the next few years. But it’s unclear. Five or six years ago, it was thought that there would be five or six of these plants at some point, and now we’re not sure that’s actually going to happen in this region.

BELTRAN: In some ways, the world seems to be moving away from plastics. U.N. negotiators recently held talks over a potential treaty to address plastic pollution. But this plant is built to produce 3.5 billion pounds of polyethylene per year. What might that mean for pollution in Beaver County and

FRAZIER: We don’t know where this plastic is going to end up. It could end up overseas, actually. It could end up in North America, as plastic bottles or medical equipment or parts that go into vehicles, even electric vehicles. But we don’t know, that kind of information is not something that Shell is required to tell local regulators and local communities. But we do know that it’s likely that this plastic will be sent on railcars around the country. They have a massive rail yard with hopper cars, where they can just dump the nurdles, which are the little plastic beads. That’s the form that they produce. And so it seems pretty certain that there will be some rail activity related to these nurdles, and that they’ll basically go elsewhere.

BELTRAN: And we should mention that this plant is located barely a half hour’s drive from East Palestine, Ohio, where a freight train derailed in February and caused a toxic chemical spill. Has this shaped the way Beaver County residents are thinking about this ethane cracker?

FRAZIER: Definitely. The Shell plant, every few weeks, would flare up, or there would be gases, or they would have an exceedance of their pollution limits. And at the same time, you have this national calamity going on about 15 miles away. And the communities around the plant are also in — downwind of that East Palestine fallout. So, it’s kind of hard to escape, if you’re living there, all of this pollution.

BELTRAN: Do regulators or environmental groups have plans to address the plant’s pollution moving forward?

FRAZIER: I think the state has set up some guideposts for Shell. They have to submit plans for how they’re going to do certain things at the plant to prevent continued releases of these pollutants. But there’s no guarantee that this kind of thing won’t keep happening, and that Shell won’t keep paying fines when it does. You know, there’s a lawsuit that has been launched from environmental groups to kind of get the plant to stop polluting, and we’ll see where that goes. These groups can push on the regulator, and the regulator can push on the company, but it’s really up to the company to perform, get its processes in line with environmental regulations. The best people can do now is hope that that happens.

#######+++++++#######+++++++#######

See Also: Pennsylvania is just the latest sacrifice zone for the plastics industry, Kristina Marusic, Sierra Club, September 15, 2022

Shell ranks in the top 10 among the 90 companies that are responsible for two-thirds of historic greenhouse gas emissions. Its Potter Township (BeaverCounty) cracker plant is expected to emit up to 2.25 million tons of climate-warming gases annually, equivalent to approximately 430,000 extra cars on the road.

Plastic Pollution Crisis from “beyondplastic.org”

Article by Randi Pokladnik, Ph.D. (Environmental Scientist), 10/12/22

As consumers become increasingly aware of the health risks and environmental issues associated with a world drowning in plastics, the petrochemical industry is advocating another false solution to address the plastic crisis facing the planet: advanced recycling or chemical recycling.

Chemical recycling uses incineration processes including pyrolysis, gasification, and solvolysis to break down plastic waste. The industry claims this will make plastic production “circular” by using plastic to make more plastic and keeping hard-to-recycle plastic waste out of landfills. A 2019 study by the U.S. Department of Energy estimated the US discarded 44 million metric tons of plastic, and 86 percent of this plastic ended up in landfills.

The PR departments of the plastics industry and the American Chemical Council are working overtime to convince politicians and citizens that chemical recycling is the answer to the enormous problem of plastic wastes. However, like carbon capture and “blue hydrogen”, this process is just another way to greenwash an industry that is responsible for 400 million tons of plastic waste each year. From cradle to grave, the entire process of plastic production has a significant carbon footprint. Even the United Nations has declared plastic wastes as a serious threat to humanity and the planet.

By using the term “recycling” the industry is misleading consumers and decision-makers. Recycling means ‘”to return a material to a previous stage of a cyclic process.” If the waste plastic material was indeed turned back into a similar plastic, it would provide a benefit to the environment by reducing the need for fossil-fuel-based feedstock to create virgin plastic. But this is not the case with chemical recycling where the majority of plastic wastes are being converted and used as a fuel source.

The technology of chemical recycling can be grouped into two main categories: heat-based and solvent- based. There are two primary methods that use heat and pressure to break down the long chain plastic polymers: pyrolysis and gasification. Both apply high temperatures to the waste plastic in a low oxygen setting or an oxygen-depleted reactor. Solvent-based depolymerization is a bit more complicated as it relies on heat as well but also includes various steps and solvents to break bonds, to strip out impurities, or to retain in-tact polymers.

A study released in September 2022, shows that reuse and mechanical recycling of plastic packaging are both better choices when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Emissions from mechanical recycling are lower than those from chemical recycling by a factor of 9.” The study also points out that reducing the amounts of unnecessary packaging will also help move the world towards a zero-emission economy.

Other factors to consider, aside from the fact that the majority of facilities are not truly recycling any plastic, are the large quantities of hazardous waste generated, the amounts of toxic air pollutants released, and the fact that facilities are “disproportionately located in communities of low income or people of color, or both.”

Agilyx, located in Tigard, Oregon is one of the few commercial-scale facilities in operation. It uses pyrolysis to turn polystyrene into the monomer styrene, which is used to make more polystyrene. Much of the styrene however is used as a fuel source. The plant released 500,000 pounds of hazardous waste in 2019. Styrene is made from benzene, a known carcinogen. PureCycle located in Ohio is also a large-scale hazardous waste producer with more than 2200 pounds of hazardous waste generated per month.

Chemical recycling requires a considerable amount of energy and obtains this by burning fossil fuels, thus adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. “In 2019 alone, the global production and incineration of plastic accounted for more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere, approximately equal to the emissions from 189 five-hundred megawatt coal power plants.”

Additionally, when plastic is burned, the carbon portion of the polymer is combusted but other toxic additives used in plastic production remain in the residue. If the plastic is used for fuels or chemical feedstocks, the non-combustible materials will remain intact. These toxins can be carcinogenic or endocrine disruptors and include: dioxins, furans, heavy metals, flame retardants, PAHs, VOCs, phthalates, bisphenol A, chlorine and fluorine. The “EPA provides little information about emissions and relies heavily on self-reporting by the industry.”

The American Chemistry Council has promoted chemical recycling and is “actively trying to influence state and local governments and decision-makers to approve new plastic expansion projects, remove regulatory obstacles, and award public monies or tax breaks to pass some of the needed investment on to taxpayers.” The ACC and other trade associations support bills which would allocate money (HR 5115) for recycling infrastructure including chemical recycling as well as funding dollars for research (HR 7728) on the technology.

A 2020 Greenpeace report “Deception by the Numbers” looked at financial investments for 51 chemical recycling projects. They found since 2017, $506 million had been awarded via public funds such as bonds, loans, grants, tax credits and other incentives. Of that $506 million, “89 percent was spent on waste-to-fuel/plastic-to-fuel.” Taxpayers are not paying for plastic recycling but rather paying for fuels for the petrochemical industry.

One of the major sticking points when it comes to regulations is the classification of chemical recycling. It is being defined as a manufacturing process rather than a waste incineration process. This means facilities are subject to less stringent air and water quality requirements. Currently, there are twenty signed state laws, including HB 166 in Ohio and SB 4084 in West Virginia, that redefine waste to exclude “advanced/chemical recycling”. One of the few states to kill an industry-backed bill was Rhode Island. A June 27, 2022 issue of “Plastic News” reported that two senior Democrats had “significant questions about the bill.” Environmental groups in the state argued that the state should focus on reducing single use plastics. The Conservation Law Foundation said “there was no evidence to support the claim that new plastics were being made, and instead materials were being burned creating climate-changing gases and air pollution.”

A final concern with these dangerous facilities is where they are located. In most cases, poor communities of color seem to be the sites for the majority of waste to energy plants. You will not see a chemical recycling facility in a rich suburb. Many lawmakers admit this is clearly a case of environmental injustice. They are writing and passing laws hoping to address the disproportionate amounts of hazardous facilities, like chemical recycling, located in poor communities, near schools, close to water sources, and adjacent to parks and public lands. (Rhode Island HB 5923).

SOBE Thermal Energy Systems is proposing a “recycling facility for tires and plastics” in Youngstown, Ohio. Basically, they will be using gasification to create a fuel that will be burned to create steam to heat some downtown buildings.

When the CEO of SOBE, Dave Ferro, was questioned about this facility his reply was, “his plant would be as clean or cleaner than natural gas.” Any peer reviewed analysis of the incineration of plastics/tires will point out the toxic air pollutants created in the process (dioxin and furans) as well as all the plastic additives that will not be fully destroyed. This facility will subject the community to a constant stream of toxins in their air, land and water. I urge anyone who thinks this is a good idea to do the research, read the scientific studies. Do not buy into industry claims that this is recycling. It is simply a dirty waste-to-energy project.

Shell cracker on Ohio River will produce substantial air pollution

From the Eyes On Shell Watchdog Team, Beaver County, PA, June 8, 2022

It was great to have many of you on the June 1st “Eyes On Shell Watchdog Team” Zoom meeting! Thanks for participating because watching Shell closely is especially important now.

As discussed at the meeting, we expect Shell’s cracker to be starting up in phases over the next few months and as early as July. During startup, before the plant comes fully online (by late 2022 or early 2023, according to Clean Air Council), we can expect significant emissions.

We can’t predict exactly the amount or timing of startup emissions. Emissions during Startup, Shutdown and Maintenance may be slightly greater than when they are running in a Steady State, but they still cannot exceed their Total Permitted Amount without incurring an infraction. We have examined the list of chemicals permitted as emissions and how much of each Shell can release during the year.

For the June 1st meeting, many thanks go to Rachel Meyer for her “Health Impacts of Oil and Gas Infrastructure” presentation. Rachel posted the following related links:

>>> The Fractracker Threat Map allows you to see how close you live to oil and gas facilities, and at Fractracker.org you can find out more about the organization that creates so many good maps.

>>> The National Energy and Petrochemical Map shows just how many pipelines there are across the whole country.

Rachel Meyer closed with this comment: Thank you for listening to my presentation! I would love to hear from you. Rachel Meyer ~ rmeyer@momscleanairforce.org

Terrie Baumgardner, who works with Clean Air Council (CAC) as Outreach Coordinator for Beaver County, closed the meeting with a preview of CAC’s Good Neighbor Wishlist. As we approach the point when the cracker will start turning fracked gas into 1.6 million metric tons of plastic pellets per year, Clean Air Council is asking residents to urge Shell to justify its claim of being a “good neighbor” by doing more to protect the community than what is legally required. The specific steps that residents, starting with EOS participants, can ask Shell to take are summed up in the Wishlist–a scaffolding for actions to discuss in future meetings.

Terrie also asks this of EOS participants: Please contact me if you live within a few miles of the plant and would like to find out more about hosting a PID (Photoionization Detector) for air sampling during a malodor event like the September 2021 maple-syrup smell one in Beaver. Her email is ~ tbaumgardner@cleanair.org.

A really good, wide-ranging discussion facilitated by Dr. Cliff Lau included information about Beaver County’s Local Emergency Preparedness Committee (LEPC) and an appeal to participants to attend the quarterly LEPC meetings.

We are also looking for someone to host a Breathe Cam, which will help us watch for emissions from different parts of the Shell petrochemical facility so we can better understand what is in our air.

Aerial photographer and blogger Bob Donnan was a great contributor to the June 1st meeting. For Bob’s remarkable weekly selection of petrochemical alerts and images, please see here.

Before our next EOS meeting on Wednesday, July 6, we need to begin to pull together your journaling observations. We’re also getting ready to train participants for and to place both monitors and bucket air samplers. If you’re a Watchdog Team member who has completed our surveys and indicated your interest in hosting, you will be contacted about next steps.

Our next Eyes On Shell Watchdog Team meeting will be in early July.

>>> Nora Johnson, Secretary, Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community (BCMAC)

High temperature cracking consumes fuel creating GHG & pollutants

From the Spring 2022 Newsletter of Concerned Ohio River Residents, WV – OH – PA

The Thai company, PTT Global Chemical America returned $20 million to the state of Ohio since they did not meet the deadline set forth in the agreement they made with the state years ago. They have not started construction and their air permit with Ohio EPA expired in Feb. 2022 as well. The state gave the company around $70 million total to prep the site in Dilles Bottom, OH to build the massive ethane cracker/plastics plant, and now that they had to return a good portion of it, many are questioning even more if the plant will ever get built.

“PTTGCA’s decision to let the air permit expire is the latest indicator that the project is extremely unlikely to move forward, and certainly will not be moving forward any time soon,” said Megan Hunter, senior attorney at the Chicago-based EarthJustice advocacy organization. “We are thankful that at least for now, the community is safe from the air pollution that would come from the facility.”

“Currently in the global economy, there is a massive overcapacity for the production of ethylene and polyethylene,” said Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute. “There’s been massive build-out along the Gulf Coast, and there’s also been major build-out in Asia, particularly in China. The competitive atmosphere is a pretty daunting one.”

What does this latest news mean for the Ohio Valley? No one is for certain, but we will keep you updated as we learn more about the situation. We should continue to push our elected officials to move on to some type of development that is sustainable and healthy, rather than extractive and dirty. Let’s come together in a positive way and create the future we want to have in the Ohio Valley.

#######+++++++#######+++++++########

Lyondell Basell to shutter Houston oil refinery in exit from refining

From an Article by Erwin Seba, Reuters News Service, April 21, 2022

HOUSTON, April 21 (Reuters) – Chemical maker Lyondell Basell Industries will permanently close its Houston crude oil refinery by the end of 2023. The decision comes after two failed attempts to sell the plant and the closing of five U.S. refineries in the last two years. Refining until recently has been beset by high costs and low margins.

“After thoroughly analyzing our options, we have determined that exiting the refining business by the end of next year is the best strategic and financial path forward,” said Ken Lane, interim chief executive. The refinery, which makes gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, will remain in operation and the company will continue to seek potential transactions and/or alternatives for the roughly 700-acre site on the Houston Ship Channel.

The company earlier took a $264 million impairment charge as part of its decision to exit refining. In the past 10 years, Lyondell has twice mounted efforts to sell the 263,776 barrel-per-day refinery but failed to conclude a deal.

John Auers, executive vice president of Turner, Mason & Co, a Dallas-based energy consultancy, said Thursday’s announcement means “there will definitely be people knocking on the door” to look at the refinery. “The refinery could sell for a significant amount,” Auers said. “I certainly don’t expect it to close given this statement.”

Lyondell said the refinery, once the anchor of its supply chain as a regional chemical company, no longer fit with its global petrochemical production. “While this was a difficult decision, our exit of the refining business advances the company’s decarbonization goals, and the site’s prime location gives us more options for advancing our future strategic objectives, including circularity,” Lane said. Circularity refers to efforts by plastics manufacturers to increase spare finished plastics from landfills and return them to the supply chain for chemical plants.

Construction phase of Shell Cracker Plant in Monaca, PA, October 2019

Spokespersons for both PTT Global Chemical America and JobsOhio said this week the company remains committed to building the multi-billion dollar project in southeast Ohio’s Belmont County as PTTGCA continues searching for an investment partner.

The $20 million was paid to Bechtel Corp. in 2019 to complete site engineering and site preparation for a plant that would convert ethane – a byproduct of natural gas drilling from the Utica and Marcellus shale fields – into different types of polyethylene, raw materials for products that range from plastic bottles to vehicle parts.

The project has been optimistically viewed as a potential economic development boost for an Appalachian region still struggling from the loss of manufacturing jobs decades ago. The plant, its backers say, would create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions and spawn a manufacturing renaissance along the Ohio River.

A similar $6 billion petrochemical plant built by Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Pittsburgh is scheduled to begin operations this year. Shell announced its final investment decision in 2016. News that PTTGC would partner with a Japanese company to build a petrochemical plant in Belmont County first surfaced in 2015, spurring talk of a regional petrochemical hub to take advantage of abundant supplies of ethane.

In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted expressed skepticism about whether the Ohio plant would be built. “They can’t find a partner because of market conditions,” Husted said. “They’re the ones who made the promise on what they’re going to do, and it’s up to them.”

Husted said the site, which is owned by PTTCGA, would be attractive to other developers. “There’s a lot of options for other end users,” Husted said. “The last thing I’m going to do is create a false hope. People in Appalachia have been promised a lot of things that businesses never delivered.”

PTTGCA spokesperson Dan Williamson said the company has invested $300 million in the project thus far and that company officials are committed to building the plant. He said there is no deadline for a decision on building it. “If the company wasn’t still hopeful of this happening, they would not continue to invest in it,” Williamson said.

JobsOhio spokesperson Matt Englehart blamed the coronavirus pandemic for the delay in an investment decision that resulted in PTTGCA paying back the $20 million. A U.S. subsidiary of South Korea’s Daelim Industrial Co. withdrew as PTTGCA’s partner in July 2020.

JobsOhio, which is funded with profits from Ohio liquor sales, has provided an additional $50 million in grants and loans for developing the site where a FirstEnergy Corp. coal-burning power plant once stood.

“PTTGCA remains committed to the project, and JobsOhio and its partners continue to work closely with PTTGCA to bring the project to a positive final investment decision,” Englehart said in a statement, adding that PTTGCA is “actively pursuing investors.”

PTTGCA is “in the process” of resubmitting its expired air permit to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Williamson said. The permit will reflect PTT Global Chemical’s commitment to reducing global emissions 20% by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050, he added.

The Ohio EPA recently renewed the company’s wastewater discharge permit.

Working in the company’s favor is that prices for polyethylene and other raw plastics have rebounded since a steep drop in 2020. Analysts say global demand for plastic products will continue to rise this decade.

Steam Cracker Chemical Plants are huge and profitable using cheap ethane, and emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide plus ....

From an Article by Chase Rogers, Corpus Christi Caller Times, March 24, 2022

SAN PATRICIO COUNTY — Years after selecting the Coastal Bend as the site for its new ethylene cracker plant, ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. held a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the startup for the new facility. Nearly 300 people attended the Wednesday event, which marked the “successful startup” of the $7 billion Gulf Coast Growth Ventures facility located on a 16-acre plot of land near Gregory in South Texas.

The facility progressively began operations last year, producing materials used in packaging, agricultural film, construction materials and clothing. The operation includes a 1.8 million metric ton per year ethane steam cracker, two polyethylene units capable of producing up to 1.3 million metric tons per year, and a monoethylene glycol unit with a capacity of 1.1 million metric tons per year.

“I can say with 100% confidence that Gulf Coast Growth Ventures is a very, very special facility built in a very, very special place. … We couldn’t have done it without you, the people in this room,” GCGV president and site manager Paul Frisch told the attendees, which included representatives from each of the companies, community leaders and elected officials.

Construction on the facility began in 2019 after the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted GCGV permits following a contested case hearing, wherein concerns were raised by environmental groups and local residents.

The construction process of the facility produced an estimated 6,000 construction jobs. Now completed, the manufacturing plant currently employs more than 600 full-timers, Frisch said.

While ExxonMobil and SABIC have partnered for 40 years on petrochemical projects, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures represents their first joint venture in the Americas. Ownership interests in GCGV are evenly divided with 50% to ExxonMobil and 50% to SABIC. ExxonMobil is the site operator, according to a GCGV news release.

#######+++++++#######+++++++#######

American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) ~ Pittsburgh Local Section Event

“Completing Construction of Shell’s New Ethane Cracker in the Ohio River Valley at Monaca, PA”

DATE & TIME: Wednesday, April 6, 2022 ++ 6:00 to 9:00 pm

Agenda: 6:00 pm – Registration & Networking, 6:30 pm – Buffet Dinner, 7:15 pm – Presentation, 8:00 pm – Q&A

The Hilton Garden Inn was built in 2019 on a bluff overlooking the $6 billion construction site where workers are completing construction of this new facility. The hotel is located about 1/2 mile from the Monaca exit (39) on I-376, about 10 miles north of the Pittsburgh Airport.

Come for a great meal and an indepth discussion about how this large plant was designed and built. It has been reported that this is the largest single construction project ever in Western PA.

For more information about this project, see articles at:

Shell Polymers … State Impact PA … Wikipedia

xxx

In our oceans, yes, and in our rivers, yards and our own bodies

From an Article by Tik Root, Washington Post, March 2, 2022

For the first time, the international community has agreed on a framework to curb the world’s growing plastic problem. A resolution adopted March 2nd by the United Nations lays out an ambitious plan for developing a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024 to “end plastic pollution.”

“With plastic pollution getting worse every day, there is no time to waste,” said Rwandan Environment Minister Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya. “This decision is a historic milestone in the global effort to prevent our planet from drowning in plastics.”

The resolution came on the third day of the biennial U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi, where more than 150 countries are represented. It calls for the creation of an intergovernmental negotiating committee to hash out details of a treaty by the end of 2024.

“This is just an amazing show of what the world can do when we work together,” said U.S. delegate Monica Medina, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs. Choking back tears, she added, “It is the beginning of the end of the scourge of plastic on this planet. … I think we will look back on this as a day for our children and grandchildren.”

U.S. is top contributor to plastic waste, report shows

The committee’s mandate includes all phases of the plastic life cycle — from design and production to waste management. It comes at a time when the world produces billions of pounds of plastic waste annually — about 353 million tons in 2019, according to a recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and amid mounting scientific concerns about issues such as marine plastic debris and the potential impact of microplastics.

Millions of tons of plastic end up in the oceans each year, leading to alarming images of turtles and other wildlife caught in the waste. Even Mount Everest has not escaped microplastics pollution. The United States contributes most to this deluge, according to a National Academy of Sciences study, generating about 287 pounds of plastics per person.

“The high and rapidly increasing levels of plastic pollution represent a serious environmental problem at a global scale,” noted the U.N. resolution, which also acknowledged “the urgent need to strengthen global coordination, cooperation and governance to take immediate actions toward the long-term elimination of plastic pollution.”

Some countries, states and municipalities have taken action to curb plastic waste. Rwanda, for instance, has had a ban on plastic bags for more than a decade. In the United States, Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) have led congressional efforts on plastic pollution, including the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in 2020. But this latest move is the most concerted international effort yet to tackle the problem of plastic pollution.

Environmental activists and industry representatives alike welcomed the agreement. “It has all the critical components we thought were necessary at this stage in the process,” said Erin Simon, the head of plastic waste and business at the World Wildlife Fund. In a statement, the International Council of Chemical Associations, a trade association, wrote, “We commend the governments that spent long days finding common ground to develop a meaningful resolution to address plastic pollution.”

The U.N. resolution was years in the making, said David Azoulay, a lawyer at the Center for International Environmental Law. He says he remembers the idea first surfacing at the 2016 iteration of the U.N. Environment Assembly in the context of marine plastic. “Envisioning a treaty was unthinkable,” Azoulay said. But, he added, Wednesday’s resolution has gone even beyond that early focus.

“The issue is not just plastic in the ocean; the issue is plastic pollution throughout its life cycle,” Azoulay said. “There is very little in there that I wish wasn’t in there. Everything we need to have the conversations that will lead to a good treaty is in there.”

Azoulay was glad that among the achievements in the resolution, its final version specifically charged the negotiating committee with looking at plastic production, included the option for a dedicated fund to help finance the treaty and mentioned human health impacts of plastic pollution.

The world created about 8 million tons of pandemic plastic waste, and much of it is now in the ocean

“There were efforts to weaken the language on health that failed,” said Bjorn Beeler, the international coordinator at the International Pollutants Elimination Network, an advocacy and research group. Although he said he would have liked a more explicit mention of the chemical additives in plastics, that language was “negotiated out.” An aspect about which Simon is excited is the call for national action plans from each participating country. More harmonized and standard data is “critical,” she said but acknowledged that “the proof is in the action we take from here on out.”

Getting from resolution to treaty will not be easy. “The fact that they are headed toward binding rules I take as a very good sign,” said Steven Blackledge, who runs the conservation program at the nonprofit group Environment America. “The devil is in the details.”

The U.N. negotiating committee will have a multitude of specifics to wade through in a relatively short time. Among the many items, any treaty will have to tackle reporting standards, financing mechanisms and, perhaps the thorniest issue, plastic production. “The million-dollar question is how much we’ll talk about reducing the production of virgin plastic,” Azoulay said.

That topic is likely to prove contentious. Ahead of the conference, Joshua Baca, the vice president for plastics at the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for chemicals manufacturers, called restricting and regulating the production of plastic “a very shortsighted approach.”

With such major hurdles left to clear, Beeler said he is skeptical that the timeline will hold. “As you get into it, it’s going to be a monster. I don’t fathom how you can get a deal within two years,” he said. “This is meaningful; this is significant. But this is really the first step.”

#######+++++++#######+++++++#######

SEE ALSO: Spotlight on United Nations Environment Assembly With Legally Binding Pact to Address Plastic Pollution | The Weather Channel, March 2, 2022

On the third and final day at the resumed fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly taking place at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Kenya, all eyes are on the establishment of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to work towards a global and legally binding agreement to address plastic pollution.

Gas pipeline welder at Hastings, WV (Wetzel County)

Donald Watts was born January 1, 1929 in Mannington, WV son of the late Rev. Glenn D. and Minnie J. (Thomas) Watts.

He was a retired welder for C.N.G. Transmission in Hastings, WV, a member of New Martinsville United Methodist Church and a member of Wetzel Lodge #39 A.F.&A.M. He was a loving father and pap and always there to lend a helping hand to neighbors and friends.

In addition to his parents he was preceded in death by three brothers, Dale, George “Buck” and Robert Watts; infant sister, Betty Jane Watts and son-in-law, Kenneth “Bill” Fisher.

Surviving are his high school sweetheart and beloved wife of seventy-three years, Erma O. (Barr) Watts; two daughters, Donna (Robert) Jones of Paden City, WV and Brenda (Steve) Rector of New Martinsville, WV; four grandchildren, Marsha (Joseph) Craycraft of Wheeling, WV, Kenneth (Lori) Fisher of Asheville, NC, Brian Jones of Paden City, WV and Angela (Jordan) Swanberg of Paden City, WV; eight great-grandchildren, Nathan, Kelsey and Lola Fisher, Emma and Sarah Craycraft and Josiah, Autumn and Aspen Swanberg and several nieces, nephews and cousins.

Friends received 4-7 p.m., Thursday, February 10, 2022 at the Jarvis-Williams Funeral Home, 1224 S Bridge St., New Martinsville. Funeral service 1 p.m., Friday, February 11, 2022 at the New Martinsville United Methodist Church with son-in-law, Pastor Steven Rector officiating. Burial to follow in Paden Memorial Gardens in Paden City, WV.

Memorial contributions may be made to New Martinsville United Methodist Church, 10 Howard Jeffers Dr., New Martinsville, WV 26155. Family is requesting everyone to wear a mask.

########++++++++########+++++++########

Dominion to work on Hastings natural gas plant in late September of 2013

From the Reuters News Staff, August 13, 2013

NEW YORK, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Dominion Transmission Inc, a unit of Dominion Resources Inc, on Tuesday said it would take the Hastings natural gas extraction plant in West Virginia out of service for planned maintenance from Sept. 30 through Oct. 3.

In a website posting, the company said all gathering system production and direct taps feeding into its system flowing to Hastings would be shut-in for the work.

Gathering production feeding the Lightburn and Schultz extraction plants, also in West Virginia, may not be shut-in if such production can continue to flow without constraints, the posting said.

Dominion Transmission said it would monitor field pressures in order to preserve system integrity and may need to adjust flows to each plant during the outage.

The Hastings extraction/fractionation plant is located near Pine Grove, West Virginia. It produces and supplies natural gas liquids including propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline, according to the company’s website.

Comments needed on water pollution potential of complex plastics industry

New Year Greetings from the Concerned Ohio River Residents (CORR), January 17, 2022 ~

As we are all weathering the winter storm and (hopefully) enjoying the snow, we ask that you take a couple actions to help protect the Ohio River today. The PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker/plastics plant proposed for Belmont County, OH (just 5 miles south of Shadyside) is still on indefinite hold.

They still have not announced a Final Investment Decision, and have been stringing along residents and decision makers for far too long – almost 7 years. Despite the fact that the future is still uncertain for this major polluting facility, they still have applied to renew their water pollution discharge permit with the state of Ohio – a move that does not necessarily indicate the project is moving forward.

We need you to take action today to help us tell the state of Ohio that enough is enough.

The Ohio River serves as a drinking water source for 5 million people with 23 water supply intakes located downstream from the proposed facility, including the drinking water intake for the city of Cincinnati. The closest water supply intake to the site of the proposed PTTGCA facility is in Sistersville, WV only approximately 30 river miles downstream.

Recent research has found that existing petrochemical facilities are already permitted to pollute 500,000 pounds of toxic discharge into the Ohio River. The PTTGCA plant would further exacerbate this problem. The Ohio EPA did not do an antidegradation review before issuing the permit the first time – something they should have done to see how the extra load of toxins would impact the River.

Additionally, the Ohio EPA put out the public notice for this water discharge permit renewal on December 20th – during the holidays – a time when people are not paying attention to these kinds of things, therefor we also need to ask for an extension to the comment period and for a public hearing.

Comments are due by this Wednesday, January 19th. Please submit your comment today. Click this link to open a document with a full comment that you can copy/paste into an email to the Ohio EPA.

Please insert your own unique comments as they carry even more weight than just submitting the generic comment. But, if you don’t have the time, just sending this language is helpful! Tell them your story about living along the Ohio River or why you care.

Send comment to the following three (3) email addresses: HClerk@epa.ohio.gov, Nicholas.McGovern@epa.ohio.gov, Ariel.Ruth@epa.ohio.gov

Please insert the following text into the subject line of the email:

Re: PTTGCA Application No.: OH0144967 Public Comment

Please also bcc our group so we know how many comments were submitted! Our email address is: general@concernedohioriverresidents.org

>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>

SEE ALSO: PTTGC Ethane Cracker Project for the Mid-Ohio River Valley is Stalled, — FrackCheckWV.net, September 24, 2020

SEE ALSO: FIDdlesticks: Why PTTGC can’t make up its mind — Sean O’Leary, Ohio River Valley Institute, June 24, 2021

Braskem Idesa chemical plant in Veracruz, Mexico

From an Article by Renzo Pipoli, Reuters Events, October 12, 2021

Brakem agreed on “adjusting” once very favorable terms on its long-term contract to buy Mexican ethane after a year of talks and following an initial adamant Brazilian stance later softened after Mexicans late last year temporarily forced its Veracruz cracker and polyethylene plant shutdown.

Braskem reported an accord that replaced the original terms of its 20-year contract with the Mexican state oil company Pemex. Braskem’s majority owner is Novonor, formerly known as Odebrecht. The biggest minority owner of Braskem is the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had sought changes claiming the deal had allowed Brazilians to buy Mexican ethane way below market, and get free shipping even when state oil Pemex needed to import the feedstock from the U.S. to deliver it.

Pemex will no longer face the dilemma of either importing ethane to give to Braskem below cost or else face hefty fines, and a full construction investment refund clause in case of early termination was scrapped, Mexican media reported.

Braskem and its minority partner Grupo Idesa completed the $5.2-billion complex with just over a million tonnes annual capacity in April 2016. The investment resulted from an auction by Mexico to sell ethane in 2009. The partners had won in public bidding, Braskem Idesa had stressed in past releases.

For nearly all of 2020 Braskem insisted on keeping terms, and reported an internal company investigation didn’t find any wrongdoing. Then Mexican President Lopez Obrador’s government forced Braskem Idesa to abruptly shut down the ethylene and polyethylene complex late last year by cutting off its energy supplies.

Shutting plant down — The Braskem Idesa venture said at the end of 2020 that Mexican officials acted irresponsibly as the abrupt power cutoff without notice prevented a shutdown under safety protocols. The sudden interruption of power and shutdown also caused supply problems for thousands of Mexicans that worked further downstream in the industry like distributors and plastic converters, it said. There was no warning before to at least alert customers, the company said.

A temporary agreement allowed a restart in early 2021 pending an accord as talks continued. The new agreement establishes new volume and price commitments for the supply of ethane from Pemex, Braskem Idesa said. Future deliveries will be “in line” with availability of this feedstock in Mexico, it said. It did not provide other details related to changes to the original 66,000-barrels-per-day supply accord.

New import terminals — Braskem-Idesa said the Mexican Gulf region where its cracker and polyethylene plant is located will see a $400-million investment but didn’t provide a breakdown.

Braskem’s project involves a 16-mile pipeline and a $50-million floating storage, El Sol de Mexico said on Aug. 24. Braskem Idesa is also building a bigger project to store fuel on land with a $150-million investment, it added.

It also said that the new accord involved using independent U.S. Gulf Coast references. Braskem Idesa imports ethane from the region.

The agreement eliminated fines that prompted Lopez Obrador to describe the deal with Brazilians as “leonine” (outstanding), El Sol de Mexico said.

Adjusting terms — Braskem Idesa said on Sep. 28 that the agreement will allow Braskem Idesa, “over time, to produce polyethylene at full capacity.”

.Braskem and Idesa, with 75% and 25% equity, announced in 2012 the borrowing of $3.2 billion to finance most of the project’s $5.2-billion total cost. Standard & Poor’s increased Baskem Idesa’s rating to B+ from B after the accord to adjust the terms was disclosed.

In the U.S. Braskem and Odebrecht pled guilty on Dec. 2016 in what was described at the time as the largest foreign bribery case in history and agreed to pay $3.5 billion to solve charges in Brazil, the U.S. and Switzerland.

Odebrecht trial delayed a year — On July 17 2020 Mexico was able to get extradited from Spain former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya. While Lozoya incriminated former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto with Odebrecht-related campaign funding, the trial is so far delayed by a year, Expansion reported.

Braskem also said that despite not working at full capacity, resin production since its April 2016 inauguration has added $4 billion in exports and created thousands of direct and indirect jobs. The shutdown coincided with a Mexican polymer market that was very tight and inventory building was urgent.

Lopez Obrador had in the past estimated losses to Mexico from the Braskem Idesa contract at about $683 million. He won a six-year presidential term in 2018 that started in December of that year. The 67-year old president ran on a campaign centered on fighting corruption and retaining control of the country’s energy assets.

>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>

Reuters Events News Brief: “Dow may expand ethylene, polyethylene complex in Canada” — Dow said on October 6th that it plans to triple its ethylene and polyethylene capacity in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta and turn the asset into a net-zero emissions complex.

Company directors must still approve the investment that would increase Dow’s ethylene and polyethylene global production capacity by 15% and de-carbonize 20% of its total output. The cracker will add 1.8 million metric tons of capacity “in a phased manner through 2030,” Dow added. This will allocate approximately $1 billion of capital expenditures annually if there is a positive decision.