Braskem and Odebrecht have withdrawn from the ASCENT

From an Article by Brad McElhinny, West Virginia MetroNews, July 23, 2019

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The developers of a proposed petrochemical cracker plant that generated buzz several years ago have officially withdrawn, state officials said, but they’re still working to encourage other possible developers.

Then-Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin announced the possibility of a petrochemical complex in 2013, calling it a “game changer.” The site was a long-time chemical plant location south of Parkersburg. The site, most recently held by a company called SABIC was more than 300 acres.

But the $4 billion cracker plant has never come to be as complications arose with the Braskem and Odebrecht companies that were behind it. The companies in 2015 said the project was being reevaluated.

Mike Graney, director of the West Virginia Development Office, was updating a group of lawmakers about recent contacts with natural gas developers when he described the status of the cracker project.

“Braskem, who owned 380 acres, I think, in Washington Works, has agreed they are not going to build a cracker and they are quietly marketing that property,” Graney said.

“And they really want to guide that decision because they’d like to see another cracker built so they’re marketing to that group of companies that could make that investment. So that’s big news. Big news because that’s sort of moving this thing forward.”

Delegate John Kelly, R-Wood said “I think that site probably is one of the best opportunities for a cracker or other investment in the state of West Virginia.”

“It has everything on that site that you need. You have close to highways, we have rails, we have river transportation and naturally we have the airport, which doesn’t do anything for product but it does get executives in and out of the area.”

Kelly has wanted to see more development on the site. “I’m extremely concerned that we haven’t seen more activity on it,” he said, alluding to the complications between the two companies that had meant to partner on it.

The lawmakers gathered to hear comments by Steven Winberg, assistant secretary for fossil energy for the U.S. Department of Energy. Winberg told lawmakers that the natural gas in the Appalachian Region has made it ripe for historic development potential. “We are on the edge of an Appalachian chemical renaissance that scarcely could have been imagined a decade ago,” Winberg said.

He said the development will produce “family-sustaining employment for decades into the future.” He said that includes not only the drilling already seen in the region but also larger projects such as cracker plants of an enormous natural gas storage hub. “What we need, ladies and gentlemen, is one of these crackers in West Virginia.”

Winberg said that the Appalachian Region is likely to complete with the Gulf Coast states of Texas and Louisiana. And within this region, West Virginia will be competing with Pennsylvania and Ohio. “If West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania were an independent country, the three states would be the third largest nat gas producer in the world,” he said.

Winberg suggested that West Virginia should continue to prepare for development possibilities with shovel-ready sites. He acknowledged that many people may feel like they have been hearing for years about the kind of development that has not actually happened so far. “I hear people all the time saying when is this going to happen? It takes years because these are massive capital projects,” Winberg said.

Delegate Kelly underscored that point with his own question. “We’ve talked about cracker plants the last four or five years. We’ve talked about a storage hub the last four or five years. And we don’t really see a lot of progress,” he said. “What is holding up progress in the state of West Virginia?”

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Cracker Plant/ Storage Hub Public Meeting

Wednesday, August 7th 6-8:30pm
St. Clairsville Recreation Center
102 Fair Ave., St. Clairsville, OH 43950

The proposed PTTG ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, OH and the Appalachian Petrochemical Storage Hub and what the community can do to protect their air, water, and future of the Ohio River Valley.

Web-Site: www.nocrackerplantOV.com

E-mail: wewantcleanwater@gmail.com

Facebook: Concerned Ohio River Residents

Appalachian Shale Cracker Enterprise (ASCENT)

WV-DEP Accepts Voluntary Remediation Program Application from ASCENT

UPDATE 8/26/2014, From TheNewsCenter, WTAP, Parkersburg, WV

Environmental officials are calling it a promising step toward bringing the proposed cracker plant to Wood County. The West Virginia DEP accepted a Voluntary Remediation Program application on August 25, 2014. The application is from the Texas company exploring the development of an ethane cracker plant in Washington.

ASCENT is hoping to get a certificate from the DEP as both parties work together to find health risks associated with the cracker plant and set standards for work to be done at the site.

“It will bring jobs to the community and through the volunteer remediation program they will be able to remediate their contamination of the site,” says Erin Brittain, with the WVDEP. Brittain says it should take about a month for the application to be reviewed and approved.

Then, ASCENT and the DEP would sign a volunteer remediation agreement, recognizing the approval of the application.

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The site consists of 363 acres, 194 of which are currently owned by ASCENT. Some 169 acres currently owned by Sabic will be transferred to ASCENT in November 2015. The West Virginia DEP says all of the property will be used for an industrial facility with an ethane cracker and three polyethylene plants.

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Update 6/04/2014

Mark Hall is a West Virginia native. He also manages a Cabell county operation for Braskem, one of two companies involved with Odebrecht on development of an ethane cracker a few miles south of Parkersburg.  While he did not have new details for the Polymer Alliance Zone, he says the second of three phases of the plant’s development has so far been successful.

“The financing is huge,” Hall told the PAZ’s members. “We can’t ask for money without raw material. At the end of the day, we have to prove we can make product once we build this facility, once we have some customers. We have to have some kind of infrastructure that says, ‘now you’ve got the ethane, now you can get it to the facility.”

A recent deal with Antero Resources helped to ensure Odebrecht had those raw materials.

Hall spoke to the annual meeting of the PAZ’s annual meeting, and the first since last November’s announcement of the cracker coming to West Virginia. In spite of the positive announcements, actual construction is still a long way off, but the signs of progress toward that construction is encouraging to both business and the community.

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UPDATE 5/15/2014

The Appalachian Shale Cracker Enterprise LLC (ASCENT) is seeking an air quality permit and a permit to evaluate the site of the proposed plant under the state’s Voluntary Remediation Program:

Six months and cracker plant plans are still moving forward. Last November 14th Odebrecht announced plans to build an ethane “cracker” in Wood County. The latest development is that Ascent, the company occupying the complex, has now submitted applications for two permits.

One is an air quality permit and the other is for an evaluation under West Virginia’s remediation program. Also since last fall, ownership of the current site of the Sabic plant in Washington, West Virginia was transferred to Ascent last January.

One issue involves the land Sabic had allowed the Tri-C program to use for its ball fields. It’s hoped a new site can be found for the baseball and softball teams to play. The permits are part of an ongoing feasibility study for plant construction.

The ASCENT parent, Odebrecht, announced plans last fall to develop a cracker facility, three polyethylene plants and associated infrastructure for water treatment and energy co-generation in Wood County. Cracker plants crack or convert ethane into ethylene, a widely used chemical compound. (Ethane is a byproduct of natural gas drilling & fracking, in some regions of the Marcellus shale territory.)