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)

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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

Shell Cracker and Trump protesters rally in rainstorm at Beaver, PA

From an Article by Davenport Rae Kurutz, Beaver County Times, August 13, 2019

BEAVER — Linda Stanley remembers playing outside as a child in Ambridge and coming inside with burning nose and lungs. Her parents fluffed it off, saying they couldn’t smell anything.

Decades later, the county’s steel mills have closed, but Stanley believes there’s a bigger threat in play — Shell Chemicals ethane cracker plant.

“That’s when I learned that kids and older people are a barometer for what is happening … Now I want to try to protect the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Stanley, of Economy, as she was standing outside the Beaver County Courthouse on Tuesday protesting the cracker plant. “Shell’s not going to do anybody in Beaver County any favors. What is the benefit for us? We certainly don’t need more plastics.”

Under the bouncing watch of a towering orange baby Donald Trump inflatable holding a cellphone — and his chicken-suit wearing compatriot — about 200 protesters brandished signs decrying the plant and President Donald Trump. The protest was concurrent to Trump’s tour and speech at Shell Chemicals’ $6 billion development in Potter Township, 5 miles from the courthouse.

Trump came to Beaver County on Tuesday to tout economic development, manufacturing and energy production and his administration’s role in supporting them. The visit was initially scheduled for Aug. 8, but was postponed following mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, the prior weekend.

While the majority of the protest was directed at Shell and Trump’s changes to environmental policies, signs and speakers addressed other issues, ranging from gun control to women’s rights and abortion.

Rob Conroy, director of organizing for Cease Fire PA, reminded the crowd of the mass shootings earlier this month and called Trump a child who “fans the flames of white supremacy and racism” during his speech. “Enough, I say, is enough,” Conroy said. “We can do better.”

Numerous protesters had signs to that effect, exclaiming “Hate does not make America great,” “I stand for respect for the environment,” “Dump Trump 2020” and “Silence is compliance.”

Others carried umbrellas adorned with streamers, and a group were covered in plastic bags calling themselves “trash flowing” on the sidewalk.

Not all protesters were from Beaver County — some came from Ohio, and numerous came from Pittsburgh. Wanda Guthrie, of the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and friends Terri Supowitz, of Wilkinsburg, and Catherine Gammon, of the Greenfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, said they came because the cracker plant needs to be stopped. While it’s located in Beaver County, it will affect people all throughout the region, they said.

“We really don’t want to have the cracker plant here,” Guthrie said.

“It’s bad enough it will destroy (Beaver County),” Supowitz said. “But it’s going to hurt all of southwestern Pennsylvania.”

And the 600 permanent jobs Shell promises isn’t worth it, they said. “There are other ways to invest in jobs,” Gammon said. “This is not it. It’s shortsighted.”

Terrie Baumgardner, a member the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, said she participated in the protest because she wants people to be more aware of the impacts of the cracker plants — including those proposed outside of Pennsylvania. She said she doesn’t want to see the region become a “cancer alley,” a term coined for an area in Louisiana with clusters of industrial plants and corresponding clusters of cancer patients.

“I’d like this area to be a safe haven from the petrochemical industry,” Baumgardner said. “This is not the best thing for our economy.”

Teenage organizer Natalie Leslie, a 16-year-old junior at Blackhawk High School, said she got involved with organizing the protest because people need to understand the lasting effects of what Trump’s policies are doing to the environment.

“I hope this spreads the light of the situation with the cracker plant,” said Leslie, of Chippewa Township. “I’d like to see a lot of younger people involved.”

Across the street, more than a half-dozen teenagers watched the protest. Some wore “Make America Great Again” hats, while one wore a flag featuring Trump depicted as Rambo. One of the young men taunted the protesters using a bullhorn, encouraging them to go home.

As a car drove past, honking as dozens of others had, a teenage girl called out the window “Bernie 2020” as the counter-protesters yelled “Trump 2020″ repeatedly.

Their presence wasn’t planned, said Chris Gordon, a student at Beaver Area High School. “I was passing by here when I saw the balloon of Donald Trump as a baby, and that got me thinking, ‘You know a few years ago when Obama was here, there weren’t any protesters for him,’” said Gordon, 17. “And I was thinking, ‘If they had a giant balloon of Obama, Republicans would be called racist or discriminating against him.’ So I came down to see what they were protesting about.”

Don Houghton quietly and thoughtfully watched the protest from Irvine Park. He was sorting through the information he had, noting that there was more regulations on the cracker plant than any of the steel mills or other industrial plants in the region, simply because it’s newer. While he is a registered Democrat, he said he respects Trump as the president. He doesn’t understand the hatred he hears spewed most days.

“I miss Sept. 12,” he said, referring to the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “Everyone was united. No Democrats, no Republicans, no independents.”

The accidents and pollution continue ...

By Dustin White, Opinion – Editorial, Charleston Gazette, June 8, 2018

Recently, we’ve been seeing a lot of opinion pieces and articles in the local media telling us how great the proposed Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub will be for our economy.

While the name of the proposed hub sounds benign, it’s anything but.

The project is a massive petrochemical complex that will rival the area known as “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana and will make the current Chemical Valley in Charleston look minuscule.

This new Cancer Alley in our region is being neatly packaged and sold to us by a select group of individuals seeking to make themselves rich at the cost of our health and economic well-being. The primary focus of this hub is to store and refine fracked gas liquids to manufacture more plastics, in a world already drowning in plastics.

First, a big incentive to build this petrochem infrastructure in West Virginia is a $83.7 billion Memorandum of Understanding with China. The Trump administration, with state government backing, signed this MOU last November without any input from the people of West Virginia.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to be consulted before being sold to another country. This MOU has still yet to be released to the public, even after several Freedom of Information Act requests on the state and federal levels.

At the signing in China was our very own commerce secretary, Woody Thrasher. In what is obviously a conflict of interest, Thrasher still owns 70 percent of the Thrasher Group, which is a contractor for oil and gas fracking infrastructure and other projects that would feed this plastic manufacturing monster.

Then there is WVU professor Brian Anderson. Anderson lends his professional title as director of WVU’s Energy Institute to scholarly studies supporting the hub. Anderson is also one of the chief principals for the Appalachian Development Group LLC — the primary group signed on to the China MOU. The ADG is responsible for the initial concept and marketing phase and is owned jointly by the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC) and the WVU Innovation Corporation. ADG has also been invited to apply for a $1.9 billion loan from the Department of Energy, meaning taxpayer dollars will be tapped for this complex.

West Virginia’s congressional delegation on both sides of the aisle have not only publicly promoted the hub and introduced several pieces of legislation in Congress to support and fast track this boondoggle, but they also have received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions this election cycle from oil, gas and petrochemical companies.

Joe Manchin received a $10,000 campaign donation from the American Chemistry Council after he introduced the Appalachian Ethane Storage Study Act of 2017, according to opensecrets.org. In turn, the American Chemistry Council, along with other interested parties, deployed a team of lobbyists in D.C. to work on the bills our delegation has sponsored.

Most recently, we have seen opinion pieces in support of the petrochem hub from the likes of former state legislator Brooks McCabe and former congressional candidate Howard Swint, both of whom could be in a position to make money from the project. McCabe is a commercial realtor who owns land with depleted gas wells near the Kanawha State Forest, in hub “areas of interest.” These areas have potential for storage of volatile fracked gas liquids awaiting transport to refineries. Swint is a commercial property broker.

So, people who appear set to line their own pockets are waging a P.R. campaign to promote a mega-petrochemical complex as a shiny, fabulous game-changer for our state. But it is just the same old, deadly game: We sacrifice our water and land and health to a fossil fuel industry.

To make things even worse, these hucksters are using the state’s economic hard times — from the downturn of the coal industry — to manipulate the public into thinking this project is a good thing.

We deserve better than opportunistic profiteers looking to get rich off another round of suffering for ordinary West Virginians.

>>> Dustin White is project coordinator with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, which is based in Huntington.

URL:

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/gazette_opinion/op_ed_commentaries/dustin-white-petrochemical-complex-not-good-for-wv-gazette/article_a37149eb-d2c9-5f60-8476-ea7f3ac29849.html

Pacific Ocean Garbage Accumulating

Solar Impulse Pilot: ‘I Flew Over Plastic Waste as Big as a Continent’

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com , April 25, 2016

As the Solar Impulse 2 made its historic 62-hour flight from Hawaii to California without fuel, pilot Bertrand Piccard personally saw the horrific amount of plastic in our oceans.

While flying above the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Piccard sent out a tweet to Boyan Slat, the 21-year-old founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup.

“I flew over plastic waste as big as a continent,” Piccard wrote. “We must continue to support projects like @BoyanSlat Ocean Cleanup,” referring to Slat’s ambitious project of ridding the world’s oceans of plastic trash.

The Ocean Cleanup describes itself as the “world’s first feasible concept to clean the oceans of plastic” and has garnered widespread public admiration and support especially for Slat, a former aerospace engineering student who proposed the concept when he was only 17.

Piccard and Slat also spoke on Friday as the solar-powered plane made its risky journey. It’s no surprise that the pilot and the young inventor linked up—both are using innovative technology to promote the greater good of the planet. Piccard and the Solar Impulse team plan to fly around the world using only the power of the sun to promote clean transportation and other environmental causes.

“We have demonstrated it is feasible to fly many days, many nights, that the technology works,” fellow pilot Andre Borschberg told the Associated Press. “I think innovation and pioneering must continue,” Piccard added. “It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy. This is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful.”

Slat has spoken before about the necessity to protect our oceans. “The oceans are the most important life—support systems of our planet,” he said in 2014. “It regulates the climate, it produces oxygen. The vast majority of biodiversity can be found in the ocean.”

The Ocean Cleanup involves a massive static platform and V-shapped booms that passively corrals plastics with wind and ocean currents. If all goes to plan, the project will officially launch in 2020 and be the longest floating structure ever deployed in the ocean.

Similarly, both parties have experienced hiccups along the way. Before arriving in California, the plane, the Solar Impulse 2, had been grounded in Hawaii for nine months as it underwent repairs after its record-breaking five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii in July.

As for the Ocean Cleanup project, despite a 530-page feasibility study, some critics and scientists have written off Slat’s idea on mechanical design and ecological impacts. Dr. Marcus Eriksen, the co-founder of 5 Gyres, offered a number of constructive suggestions for the project.

Still, it’s very clear that the environment needs whatever help it can get, from curbing our reliance on dirty energy to putting a stop to plastic waste. The world’s oceans and marine life are suffering from a devastating plastic crisis, with 8 million metric tons of plastic waste dumped into our oceans every year. Plastic pollution is only getting worse as consumer use of plastic and plastic-intensive goods intensifies in emerging countries.

Not only that, an alarming new study by the University of Delaware physical oceanographer Tobias Kukulka reported that there might be much more plastic than what’s estimated.

“My research has shown that ocean turbulence actually mixes plastics and other pollutants down into the water column despite their buoyancy,” Kukulka said, according to UD Daily. “This means that surface measurements could be wildly off and the concentration of plastic in the marine environment may be significantly higher than we thought.”

Plastic Junk on the Rise!

PTT Global Making $100 Million Investment for Ethane Cracker in Ohio Valley

From Articles by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, September 3 & 4, 2015

Columbus, OH – Ohio Gov. John Kasich believes PTT Global Chemical is on third base and heading for home in terms of building its $5.7 billion ethane cracker in Belmont County, Ohio. The Thailand-based firm on Thursday committed to spend $100 million of its own money for engineering and design plans at the Dilles Bottom site.

“Building an ethane gas cracker in eastern Ohio has the ability to be a real game changer for our economy as we make our state a hub for the energy industry,” Kasich said Thursday at the Statehouse. “The company’s decision to start the engineering phase of this potential project is an enormous step toward making this project a reality.”

PTT President and CEO Supattanapong Punmeechaow said PTT America will take up to a year to determine the feasibility of a world-scale petrochemical complex. If constructed at the FirstEnergy R.E. Burger site and surrounding property, the project would create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent jobs.

The ethane cracker would convert ethane extracted from the region’s Marcellus and Utica shale formations into ethylene, which is used as a basis for plastics and resins contained in everyday items such as food and product packaging, textiles and pharmaceuticals.

Punmeechaow said PTTGC America has signed contracts with two consortiums of prestigious engineering firms led by Bechtel Enterprises Holdings Inc. and Fluor Corp., which will conduct the preliminary front-end engineering design work and cost estimates.

Thailand-based PTT Global and partner Marubeni Corp. of Tokyo have been exploring the possibility of building this petrochemical complex, which would include the 130-acre FirstEnergy Corp. R.E. Burger Plant and some adjoining property in the vicinity of the Ohio River and Ohio 7.

The Asian firms are supposed to make a final investment decision by the end of next year. FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said the electricity company was moving forward to demolish the Burger plant, but said any talk of future development for the property would be premature.

Other potential cracker plants in the Marcellus and Utica region include the Odebrecht ASCENT Project possibility for Wood County, WV as well as the Royal Dutch Shell plant in Monaca, PA. Both Odebrecht and Shell have applied for air quality permits to allow construction of their plants, but have not indicated a final investment decision.

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CB&I  Wins Early Works Contract for Proposed Ethane Cracker in Lake Charles, LA

From a Press Release by CB&I, September 1, 2015

CB&I has announced it has been awarded an early works contract by LACC, LLC, a joint venture between Axiall Corporation and Lotte Chemical Corporation, to provide additional detailed engineering and early procurement services associated with the proposed LACC Ethane Cracker Project in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This new scope of work follows CB&I’s previous supply of its proprietary ethylene technology and front-end engineering design (FEED) services to LACC, LLC.

The parties continue to evaluate the construction of a cracker with the capacity to produce approximately one million metric tons of ethylene annually employing CB&I’s latest, proven ethylene technology, including highly selective SRT^® cracking heaters and its innovative recovery section design, featuring low pressure separation and mixed refrigeration to minimize investment costs.

“CB&I  (formerly Chicago Bridge & Iron) has worked closely with Axiall Corporation and Lotte Chemical to develop this project from the beginning,” said Patrick K. Mullen, President of CB&I’s Engineering & Construction operating group. “We are pleased to affirm our relationship with both companies and look forward to supporting this important initiative.”

See also: Plastic Junk on the Rise!

PA & WV Ethane going West & East

Nova Chemicals updating neighbours on pipeline plan at Sarnia (Canada)

From a Press Release of Nova Chemicals, Sarnia Observer (Canada), January 15, 2015

Nova Chemicals is considering a four-kilometre pipeline project to connect its Corunna petrochemical facility to a secondary feedstock source. The pipeline is one of the proposed projects the company plans to provide updates on during a public information meeting set for January 22, 2015

The proposed Kimball pipeline project would replace a dormant four-inch pipeline with a four-km, 12-inch pipeline in an existing right of way, connecting the Corunna site to Plains Midstream’s Windsor-Sarnia pipeline near Kimball Sideroad and a secondary source of natural gas liquids feedstock originating in the Utica shale area of the U.S.

“This is all part of our continued revitalization of our eastern assets,” said Rob Thompson, Nova’s regional operations leader. Nova recently completed work to connect its Corunna facility by pipeline to natural gas liquids from the Eastern U.S. Marcellus shale region.

Also, Nova just recently converted its Corunna facility to use up to 100% feedstock from natural gas liquids. “Currently, we’re operating this facility 100% natural gas liquid feed” from the Marcellus shale pipeline connection, Thompson said.

The proposed pipeline project “will get us a secondary feed source,” he added. “It’s about reliability of the plant,” Thompson said. “It will give us opportunities, in case there’s issues with supply or pipeline reliability.”

Previously, the Corunna facility’s feedstock had been a combination of natural gas liquids and oil. “By switching to this newer feedstock, we’ve taken out the volatility of being tied to crude oil,” allowing the operation “to be much more stable than we would have been,” Thompson said.

He said construction on the Kimball pipeline replacement project could begin in the summer of 2016.  As well as replacing an existing smaller pipeline, the project would remove a dormant eight-inch pipeline from the right of way.

Last fall, Nova Chemicals said a new long-term agreement with the Kinder Morgan Energy Partners pipeline company would provide access to ethane and ethane-propane mixtures from the Utica shale region, through a 380-kilometre, 75,000 barrel-a-day pipeline to be built from Harrison County, Ohio to Michigan, where it can connect to Ontario.

The Jan. 22 meeting will also provide information on Nova’s other proposed capital projects. “Over the last 10 years, Nova’s invested basically $1 billion in capital in Sarnia-Lambton,” Thompson said. “We’re going to give the community an update on the status of each one of those projects.”

In late 2013, Nova Chemicals said it was considering spending another $300 million expanding ethylene manufacturing capacity by 20% at Corunna, as well as upgrading polyethylene capacity at its Moore site. Engineering work for those projects is underway but construction is still waiting for corporate approval, Thompson said. Nova has already applied for provincial environmental approval for the Corunna expansion, Thompson said.

The company is also still considering building a new polyethylene plant in Ontario, or on the U.S. Gulf coast. “We continue to study that facility to determine the best location, and potential timing for construction,” Thompson said. “It’s more positive today than it was a year ago,” he added.

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Qatar Petroleum and Shell not to pursue Al Karaana petrochemicals project

From an Article in OilVoice, January 14, 2015

Qatar Petroleum and Shell have decided not to proceed with the proposed Al Karaana petrochemicals project, and to stop further work on the project. The decision came after a careful and thorough evaluation of commercial quotations from EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) bidders, which showed high capital costs rendering it commercially unfeasible, particularly in the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry.

The Al Karaana project was initiated with a Heads of Agreement (HOA) between QP and Shell in December 2011, and envisioned the construction of a new world-scale petrochemicals complex in the Ras Laffan Industrial City north of Qatar. The complex was to be operated as a stand-alone QP-Shell joint venture (80% QP, 20% Shell).

QP and Shell’s existing partnerships include Pearl GTL — the world’s largest integrated gas-to-liquids plant located at Ras Laffan, which has boosted Qatar’s position as the world’s GTL capital. The partnerships also include Qatargas 4 — an integrated Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) asset — in addition to joint downstream and upstream investments in Singapore and Brazil.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Thai-Japanese duo angling for another Marcellus ethane cracker

From an Article by Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, September 28, 2014

A partnership between Thailand’s largest chemical company and a Japanese trading and investment house is shopping the region for an ethane cracker site.

Allenport’s Mon River Industrial Park in Washington County is one of three locations being evaluated by the partners Bangkok-based PTT Global Chemical and Tokyo-based Marubeni Corp.

This is the third potential cracker project seriously considering the Appalachian region to capitalize on the supply of natural gas liquids, specifically ethane, that are abundant in parts of the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

Royal Dutch Shell was the first company to announce it is evaluating the Horsehead Corp. complex in Potter Township, Beaver County, for a world-scale ethane cracker. The multibillion-dollar plant would convert ethane into ethylene, a feedstock for the petrochemical industry.

And last year, Brazilian company Odebrecht said it had chosen Parkersburg, W.Va., to study as a site for its proposed Appalachian cracker facility, dubbed Project Ascent. Both companies are still evaluating and haven’t yet made their final decisions to build.

Shell’s spokeswoman Kim Wyndon said it’s too early in everyone’s evaluation process to speculate what impact three crackers would have on the region, if all are indeed built. She could only speak for Shell’s motivation for choosing an Appalachian site. “The supply was there and we knew we would have the workforce capabilities that were needed,” she said.

Odebrecht’s David Peebles, who is vice president of Ascent, said the addition of a third cracker project would start to create a concentration of ethane plants in the region and help drive a manufacturing renaissance here.  “This is like the Silicon Valley for the polymer industry,” he said.

Sources familiar with the PTT-Marubeni effort, who requested to remain anonymous, confirmed the group has been looking at the Tri-State area for the better part of a year. The evaluation process has clued in state and local economic development officials, as well as the environmental regulators and transportation interests, they said.

Aside from Allenport, a site in West Virginia and another in Ohio are on the table for the PTT-Marubeni project, sources said. The three states have competed fiercely for the other two major cracker projects.

The 400-acre Allenport location is the former home of Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel. It has 16 buildings once used in manufacturing and for warehousing, and barge and rail access. In 2012, the industrial park was designated a Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone, a state classification that grants companies that locate there tax exemptions and abatement for 10 years.

PTT Global Chemical’s outgoing president and CEO Bowon Vongsinudom told Chemical Week magazine in July that his company was in discussions about a U.S. cracker and resins project that would use Marcellus Shale gas as a feedstock.

With revenue of $17.7 billion during the past fiscal year, PTT is on a growth path. While only about 2 percent of its sales came from the U.S. last year, Mr. Vongsinudom told the trade publication that the firm wants to have a strong manufacturing base outside of Thailand and is looking at the United States as a target for expansion.

For its part, Marubeni already is active in North America and has a stake in several U.S. shale plays through joint venture partnerships in the Niobrara and the Eagle Ford shales. Energy is a growing part of the Japanese company’s revenue stream. In 2013, energy accounted for 27 percent of Marubeni’s revenue, a close second to the company’s largest money maker, agriculture.

PTT and Marubeni already are working together in Asia. The duo signed an agreement last year to jointly develop new power plant projects in Thailand and neighboring countries.