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.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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

Shell studies ethane cracker site on Ohio River in western PA
.
.
Article by Paul J. Gough, Pittsburgh Business Times, Nov. 5, 2013

Shell continues to have what Horsehead Holding Corp. calls an “extremely active” presence at the soon-to-be-closed Horsehead zinc plant in Beaver County as the conglomerate decides whether to build a petrochemical plant there.

Shell had “70 people crawling over the facility in the last week,” Horsehead CEO Jim Hensler told analysts on a conference call Tuesday reporting Horsehead’s third-quarter earnings. “They’re still actively involved.”

Shell announced in 2012 that it was looking to locate an ethane cracker at the Horsehead factory on the Ohio River in Potter Township near Monaca. While Shell has yet to make a final decision on the petrochemical plant, it has extended the option with Horsehead (Nasdaq: ZINC) until early January.

Hensler didn’t have much else to say about Shell. “We haven’t really had much news to report on it,” he told analysts when asked about it.

One thing is for certain: Horsehead won’t be producing zinc at the Potter Township plant after the end of the year or early next year. It’s set to open a state-of-the-art plant in North Carolina and close the zinc smelters in Beaver County. It sent a 60-day notice to workers there that the plant would be closing the six furnaces at Monaca.

“Some employees have decided to take jobs elsewhere” in anticipation of the plant’s closing, Hensler said. The North Carolina plant should begin operation by the end of the year.

But Horsehead also said it might continue zinc smelting at the facility for up to eight weeks on a few furnaces into 2014 for an overlap with the new plant to consume any remaining material.

“We may end up having a workforce of 30 to 40 people we may keep on site for several weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, to help with that decommissioning process,” Hensler said.

 Shell opened the bidding process for companies to supply ethane and took bids through October 4, or beyond. The company has deals with Consol Energy Inc., Hilcorp Energy Co., Noble Energy Inc. and Seneca Resources Corp., among others.

Houston Residents Get Asthma

Houston is preview to Shell’s proposed Beaver County cracker plant?

Allegheny Front, October 25, 2013

HOUSTON ­­– The largest chemical hub in the Americas courses through this city in a seemingly unending line of plants that produce about a quarter of the country’s petrochemicals. These plants have helped fuel the city’s economic rise. But they also have added to its poor air quality, with emissions that have been linked to asthma, cancer, and heart attacks.

In recent years, Houston has found ways to reduce air pollution, in part by zeroing in on chemical plant emissions. Experts say Houston’s experience may show others how to keep chemical emissions down, even as the industry expands along the Gulf Coast, and possibly into Pennsylvania.

From Pennsylvania to Texas, the chemical industry is building new plants to take advantage of vast deposits of natural gas opened up by the fracking boom. Shell Chemical is eyeing building an ethane cracker in Monaca in Beaver County. The plant would take ethane from the Marcellus shale and convert it into ethylene—a key building block for plastics and chemicals—through the ‘cracking’ process.

Shell’s Pennsylvania cracker would be northwest of Pittsburgh, in a region that already fails federal air quality standards for ozone and other pollutants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Ozone is an oxidant that can burn lung tissue, aggravate asthma and increase susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis, according to the agency.

Ozone is formed when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) mix with other forms of pollution in the presence of sunlight. Air quality experts say the biggest impact a cracker plant would have in Pittsburgh would be through releases of VOCs.

The company has said differences in local permitting rules and the type of raw materials it would use make it hard to project what kinds of emissions a Pennsylvania cracker would produce. The company has used Shell’s Norco plant in Louisiana in the past as a reference when it proposed its Pennsylvania cracker. Norco produces roughly twice the VOCs of U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke works, currently the highest emitter in Southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the EPA.

Shell recently agreed to spend $115 million to clean up emissions at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery and ethylene plant near Houston after the Department of Justice filed a complaint alleging the plant’s flares were emitting improper amounts of VOCs and cancer­-causing pollutants.

Joe Osborne of the Group Against Smog and Pollution, an environmental advocacy group in Pittsburgh, said the Beaver County plant would likely be a major source of new pollution, with more than 50 tons per year of VOCs and 100 tons of nitrogen oxides, another key component of ozone, though he has yet to see any estimates from the company.

“I expect it will be a large source of ozone precursors, and this would be located in an area that’s already failing to meet federal health-­based standards for ozone,” he said.

Looking to Houston

One study linked high ozone incidents to increased instances of cardiac arrest in Houston; others have found high rates of asthma and childhood leukemia in neighborhoods near the chemical industry.

Adding difficulty to the issue is the fact that Houston has no zoning laws, which means some residents live across the street from huge refineries and chemical plants. But in the last decade, Houston’s air has improved, in part because regulators have targeted the petrochemical industry.

The city’s air quality nadir was in 1999. “We were the capital of ozone,” says Elizabeth Hendler, a former state regulator who now works as an environmental consultant to industry. In that year, Houston surpassed Los Angeles as having the highest ozone levels in America. “That was kind of a wake­up call,” Hendler said.

Not long afterward, in 2003, Toyota decided against locating a plant in the region because of the city’s air. Hendler says the number of air monitors in Houston doubled in a few years.

The state undertook a wide-­ranging series of studies. Aircraft from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration flew over the ship channel with special emissions-­sensing equipment.

They found big leaks at the plants. The worst were from chemical plants with ‘crackers’ that made ethylene and propylene, two basic building blocks of plastic.

“The plants were having 1,000 pound releases, 5,000 pound releases, 20,000 pound releases, in one case 200,000 pound releases,” said Harvey Jeffries, a retired University of North Carolina chemist who studied Houston’s air and advised business and research groups on Houston’s air problems.

Ethylene and propylene—the two main products made in a cracker— ­are considered ‘highly reactive’ VOCs, meaning they can create large plumes of ozone in a matter of hours under the right conditions.

“When that stuff gets emitted in the daytime—it cooks up the highest amount of ozone you’ve ever seen,” Jeffries said.

When they looked at Houston’s industrial corridor, scientists realized chemical plants had been chronically under­-reporting their emissions. A lot of this pollution was ‘fugitive’ emissions—leaks from valves, flanges, tiny holes in pipes, and incomplete combustion of waste gasses in the plants’ flares.

To get the city’s air under federal air pollution limits, Texas implemented a suite of environmental reforms. The state created special limits on emissions of highly reactive VOCs like propylene and ethylene, and implemented a cap­-and-­trade program for Houston’s petrochemical plants.

What happened next?  “Well, ozone went down—­­a lot,” Hendler said. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality estimates the city’s ozone levels have decreased about 20 percent since 2001.

The number of days when the air in Houston exceeds the EPA’s current eight­-hour average for ozone of 75 parts per billion went from around 100 a year in 2005 to under 35 days in 2012. Emissions of other pollutants, including carcinogenic chemicals released in petrochemical manufacturing, also decreased.

Progress, but no cure

In spite of recent strides, Houston still struggles with air quality. The city will see huge expansions of its petrochemical sector in the next few years, thanks to the fracking boom. Several new or expanded ethane crackers are slated to go online to take advantage of cheap natural gas. This has some clean air advocates worried.

“We’ve made significant progress,” said Larry Soward, a former regulator for the Texas commission and president of Air Alliance Houston. “But let’s not pat ourselves on the back too much. So far we have not met a single (federal) standard for ozone ­­and we’re talking about adding all these new pollution sources.”

Steve Smith, technical advisor to the industry­-funded Houston Regional Monitoring Network, which operates around a dozen air pollution monitoring stations around the city, says the key to keeping emissions low is simple: Keep an eye on it. “If you monitor, it will get better,” he said. “That’s exactly what happened here.”

Smith’s group tests for more than 150 pollutants to help oil, gas and petrochemical businesses meet federal air quality mandates. “We set up a network early on, where if we saw a value too high, we sent out a notice to the companies, saying ‘Look at what’s happening. See if you have something that’s going on.’”

Recent news is that Ohio is competing with Pennsylvania and West Virginia for a multibillion-dollar ‘cracker’ chemical plant that would process ethane from the Utica and Marcellus shales. Shell Chemical is expected to decide in early 2012 where the ethane cracker plant will be built. It is reported that the company has looked at more than 40 sites in the three states.

Ohio has offered state incentives of $1.4 billion to Shell Chemicals, according to Greenwire, a national energy and environmental news service. The project would require a few hundred acres near a river and railroad facilities, and as many as 10,000 construction workers according to Shell spokesman Dan Carlson.

Shell has four such plants in the United States and has Marcellus holdings in Pennsylvania. In mid-2010, the company purchased the Marcellus holdings of East Resources for $4.7 billion. Shell could add an adjoining complex to process polyethylene and mono-ethylene glycol (anti-freeze).

According to the Wall Street Journal, as reprinted elsewhere, the processing of ethane into chemicals is 50% cheaper than using crude oil-derived naphtha. Ethane availability has made U.S. petrochemical companies the envy of overseas competitors. It also brings the prospect of lower prices for auto parts, Styrofoam and other products. “Now there’s tremendous growth in natural-gas liquids, with more growth seen on the horizon,” said Adam Bedard, senior director at analysis firm Bentek Energy.

The boom has turned into a potential profit center for oil-and-gas producers, as well as for the pipeline companies that transport ethane, the demand for which grew to about 933,000 barrels a day during the first half of 2011, up from 812,000 barrels a day in 2009, according to Bentek Energy. But like the other fuels extracted from remote shale deposits, the biggest problem is how to get it to facilities that can process it.

A dearth of pipelines created a bottleneck that drove the price that petrochemical companies pay for ethane to 95 cents per gallon in the third quarter of 2011, from 60 cents at the start of the year, said Dow Chemical Co. Chief Executive Andrew Liveris. But even with that price spike, chemical companies prefer ethane over other chemicals, he said. 

According to the WV Secretary of Commerce, there is continuing activity in State government to attract an ethane ‘cracker’ chemical plant to the Kanawha or Ohio valley. Sites at Natrium in Marshall county and near Montgomery in Kanawha county are under consideration, among others.