Beaver County | Energy Companies | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Shell
Shell PA Cracker Still 95% Done, Online This Yr, Use 96K b/d Ethane
In January MDN reported comments by a Shell representative who said the mighty ethane cracker the company is building in Monaca (Beaver County), PA was 95% complete (see Shell Ethane Cracker 95% Complete, Online in “Matter of Months”). Nearly three months later a Shell rep said yesterday the plant is…still just 95% complete. However, the rep also said the plant is “well into commissioning” and will “be a fully operational site later this year.” According to analysts at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), when the Shell plant comes online this year it will suck up 96,000 barrels per day (b/d) of Marcellus ethane.
Read More “Shell PA Cracker Still 95% Done, Online This Yr, Use 96K b/d Ethane”
Each quarter NGI (
Shell, which recently dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name after leaving The Netherlands due to high taxes and overregulation, is one of the world’s supermajors (oil and gas driller). Shell is also one of (perhaps THE) largest producers of LNG, or liquefied natural gas, in the world. The company has just released its sixth annual LNG Outlook 2022 (full copy below) which highlights key trends in 2021 and hauls out the crystal ball to predict where things are heading over the next 20 years. Shell says global demand for LNG is expected to nearly double (up 90%) to 700 million tonnes by 2040. Why? Because natgas emits less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than other alternatives.
Just a few weeks ago we told you a Shell rep said the mighty ethane cracker is 80% complete and the company is now searching for permanent employees to fill some 600 positions (see 
A Shell spokesman last week said that the mighty ethane cracker plant the company is building in Monaca (Beaver County), PA is now 80% complete and projected to be operational “sometime this year,” although a more specific date can’t be nailed down. Currently, there are some 8,000 workers who report to the construction site each day. Simply astounding! When the plant is done and operational, it will employ about 600 permanent on-site workers. Shell is now in recruiting mode to find those 600 permanent workers.
Our friends at NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) are running an excellent series providing expert forecasts for the global natural gas and oil markets in 2022. The latest installment interviews several experts about the prospects for the Marcellus/Utica. With the Shell ethane cracker plant coming online sometime this year, the prospects for NGL sales in the M-U have picked up. Also in the discussion: capping Pennsylvania’s orphaned wells, drilling in the Wayne National Forest, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline coming online.
The so-called Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) is a far-left, hyper-partisan, nonprofit organization that routinely lies about the Marcellus/Utica industry. A Pittsburgh area labor and business group called Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT) routinely debunks ORVI’s falsehoods. Here’s the latest lie from ORVI: “[T]he Shell petrochemical complex has failed to produce economic growth in Beaver County.” Here’s the truth, the facts, as shared by PWT: “In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Beaver County grew jobs far faster than the overall Pittsburgh region, the state of Pennsylvania, and the U.S, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of labor statistics. And Beaver County’s economy expanded twice as fast as the rest of the state, and faster than the U.S. economy overall, gross domestic product (GDP) data show.”
Although this story technically is not about the Marcellus/Utica, it is about the parent company of the Shell ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, and it is instructive for politicians everywhere that increasingly love to bash fossil fuel companies. Royal Dutch Shell Plc was founded in and has been headquartered in The Netherlands for the past 100+ years. The Netherlands is attacking the company via the courts and with threats of insane taxes. So Shell is doing the unthinkable: Reorganizing and dropping “Royal Dutch” from the name and relocating its headquarters from the Netherlands to London.
Imagine Hershey Park getting fined for smelling like a Hershey’s chocolate bar. Or Starbucks getting fined because the businesses next door can smell the coffee. The Shell cracker plant is getting fined for smelling like…maple syrup? Last week residents in several Beaver County, PA municipalities neighboring the Shell ethane cracker complex reported smelling something like a strong whiff of maple syrup. Shell immediately hired a third-party investigator and believes they now know what caused the smell.
The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) recently issued a “warning letter” to Shell concerning the company’s ethane pipeline, called the Falcon Pipeline. PHMSA claims the pipeline committed two “probable violations” by failing to place pipeline sections at a construction site in Beaver County on protective padding. PHMSA told Shell to fix it, or else.
A new study prepared for Shell Chemical Appalachia earlier this year is just coming to light now. The study, researched by professors at Robert Morris University (RMU), calculates the impact on the Pennsylvania economy from the soon-to-be-completed Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. The numbers are staggering. Each and every year that cracker operates RMU projects the cracker will create $3.7 billion throughout the PA economy. Amazing! And it’s ALL private money–no government transfers from one taxpayer to another. Joe Biden should be jumping up and down and extolling this from the rooftops! Instead, he’s attacking fossil fuels.
