Enterprise Wants to Build Ethane Pipeline to Gulf Coast

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. is planning to build a major new pipeline to transport ethane from the Marcellus and Utica Shale regions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The second largest component (by volume) to come out of the ground in shale gas drilling is the chemical ethane. Somewhere between one and six percent of natural gas coming from the ground is ethane, which can be converted to the hydrocarbon ethylene. Ethylene is the “feedstock” (or raw material) used to make most plastics, including polyethylene and PVC. Enterprise wants to provide a way for ethane to reach the ethylene processing plants along the Gulf Coast.

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