Marcus Hook Refinery Already Exporting Propane – Who Knew?!
We spotted what is, to us, a fascinating story about propane use across the country. There are those, like LP Gas magazine, that closely watch usage trends for propane. As you may know, propane is an NGL, or natural gas liquid. It is one of the hydrocarbons that comes out of a borehole drilled to extract either oil or natural gas. Along with oil and gas other hydrocarbons come out of the hole--NGLs like propane, ethane, butane, etc. One of the places propane is increasingly produced, and consumed, is in the northeast--because of Marcellus/Utica drilling. The sharp editors at LP Gas noticed an historically unusual trend--a spike way up in propane usage in one of the main regions tracked, in the northeast. The explanation for the spike up in usage? Propane is getting exported from the Marcus Hook refinery. Therefore much larger volumes of propane are being "consumed" by those exports. Which we find fascinating. We are producing AND consuming propane within the Marcellus/Utica region. That is, we're generating wealth by exporting propane. We knew about ethane exports already happening at Marcus Hook (see Bon Voyage! First Ethane Export Ship Leaves Marcus Hook in Philly). And we knew that it's been in the plans to export propane (see Rex Energy Cuts Deal to Export Ethane, Propane to Europe via Philly). What we didn't know is that propane exports are *already happening* from Marcus Hook...
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