Late last week Shell shut down all work at its ethane cracker plant site in Monaca (Beaver County), PA to test workers for COVID-19. After testing roughly 7,400 (out of 7,950) workers Shell found 141 positive results, or 1.9%. Workers began returning to the site on Wednesday.
Read More “Shell Stops Cracker Construction for 5 Days to Test for COVID”
Last Saturday a small fire occurred in a metal storage container at the Shell ethane cracker plant complex still under construction in Beaver County, PA. The on-site fire department quickly extinguished the blaze (no injuries). Also last week, Shell reported 61 new cases of COVID-19 among workers at the plant. Currently, 97 employees (out of 7,950, or 1.2%) have the virus. Some 238 site employees have recovered from COVID infection and returned to work since the beginning of the pandemic in March.
Read More “Fire at Shell PA Cracker Complex; COVID Cases Spike at Plant”
In line with a rise of COVID-19 cases in the general population throughout the state of Pennsylvania (and elsewhere), workers at the Shell ethane cracker site in Monaca, PA (near Pittsburgh) have seen a big jump in active coronavirus cases. As of yesterday, the number of active cases stood at 39. Wednesday the number was 31. Shell says most if not all of the cases are coming from offsite and onsite transmission among the 7,000 active workers is not a factor in the rising number.
Read More “Spike in COVID Cases at Shell PA Cracker Plant Site – 39 Active”
Radical anti-fossil fuel groups have not given up hope they can somehow, at the last minute, block the $10 billion Shell ethane cracker plant (about a year from being completed) from ever starting up. Perhaps Biden’s “victory” has given them a little boost of irrational exuberance? In 2015 the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an air permit for the cracker plant. Shell needs to tweak the permit with new information. Antis are asking PA to deny the new tweaks, claiming Shell wants to pollute the region even more. Shell says the tweaks reflect new realities, including LOWER emissions.
Read More “Anti Groups Ask PA to Reject Shell Cracker Air Permit Modification”
A group of anti-fossil nutters who devoted themselves to blocking Marcellus/Utica drilling around the Ambridge Reservoir have turned their attention to the Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County. They wanted to stop the cracker from getting built, but given the plant is now 70% built and it’s a 100% guarantee it will get done and go online, the nutters have turned their attention to aggressive monitoring of the plant and the pollution, they say, that will come from it.
Read More “Antis Organize “Nurdle Patrols” to Police Shell Cracker”
Once again big money is being funneled to Big Green groups by secretive sources to finance a lawsuit attacking American infrastructure. The latest attack by Big Green, including a PA-based “environmental” group, seeks to overturn a recently-updated rule by the U.S. EPA governing air emissions from ethane cracker facilities.
Read More “Big Green Lawsuit Targets Cracker Plants, Incl. Shell PA Cracker”
Last week we brought you news that Shell had temporarily suspended adding back some 300 workers per week at its ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a spike in COVID-19 coronavirus cases (see Shell Stops Adding Workers at Cracker Site After New Virus Cases). The new news is that as of today, Shell has resumed adding workers back because they’ve built their own COVID testing lab *on site* at the cracker facility. They can now get test COVID results in 4 hours instead of 4-6 days. Sometimes you just have to do it yourself.
Read More “Shell Builds COVID Testing Lab at Cracker Site, Adds More Workers”
When the COVID-19 coronavirus hit, Shell stopped all work on its mighty cracker plant in Beaver County, PA, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see Shell Shuts Down SWPA Cracker Plant Construction re COVID-1). In early May Shell began bringing back 300 workers each week. Roughly 3,500 work on-site now. Because of a spike in new coronavirus cases among workers, Shell has temporarily stopped adding back new workers.
Read More “Shell Stops Adding Workers at Cracker Site After New Virus Cases”
Shell slowly but surely continues to ramp back up the work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. When the COVID-19 coronavirus hit in March, Shell stopped all work on the cracker plant, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see Shell Shuts Down SWPA Cracker Plant Construction re COVID-1). In early May Shell began bringing back roughly 300 workers each week. The total number of workers back on the job now stands at 3,000.
Read More “3,000 Workers Back on the Job at Shell Cracker Construction Site”
In early May Shell and National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) announced a deal for Shell to sell all of its remaining Appalachian assets, which includes 450,000 acres and some 350 producing M-U shale wells along with pipeline assets, to NFG for $541 million (see Fire Sale: Shell Sells All Remaining PA M-U Assets for $541M). The deal is expected to close by the end of July. Most of the assets are located in Tioga County, PA. Folks in Tioga County are excited that NFG (via its drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources) will soon ramp up drilling on the Shell acreage. The county is rolling out the red carpet.
Read More “Tioga County, PA Excited About Shell Asset Sale to NFG”
A group of leftwing radical professors (all of the Democrats) from seven universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania have colluded to write a letter to the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The letter trash talks the billions of dollars in economic impact and tens of thousands of jobs ethane cracker plants and the petrochemical industry will have in the region. The leftist gang of seven poo-poos those estimates and says the proposed PTT cracker is too “risky” to approve. How do they figure?
Read More “Leftwing Academic Hacks Trash Talk PA, OH Cracker Plants”
Two of the largest not-yet-completed pipeline projects in the Marcellus/Utica, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), are currently on hold with no construction activity due to various legal challenges by Big Green (see today’s story, Mountain Valley Pipe Update: Done and In-Service Early 2021). However, there are several other large and small M-U pipeline projects where construction continues, even with restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic. Which pipelines?
Read More “M-U Pipelines Continue Construction Despite Pandemic, Lawsuits”
Pieridae Energy wants to build an LNG export plant in Nova Scotia, Canada. The project is called the Goldboro LNG project. We’ve tracked the project for years hoping Marcellus/Utica gas might one day feed it (see our Goldboro LNG stories here). Our hopes to have M-U gas feed Goldboro were dashed when Pieridae announced a deal last June to buy assets from Shell in Western Canada with plans to pipe the gas to the Goldboro plant (see Pieridae Buys Shell Assets in W Canada to Feed Nova Scotia LNG). Canadian regulators in Alberta have just scuttled the deal, refusing to grant permission.
Read More “Regulators Reject Pieridae/Shell Plan to Feed Nova Scotia LNG”
Shell continues to ramp back up work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company has announced plans to add 300 employees back each week until they are back up to full compliment.
Read More “Shell Adding Back 300 Workers a Week at Cracker Construction Site”
Add another 300 workers returned to work at the mighty Shell ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA this past Monday. This follows the lifting of a ban on construction activities by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. With the extra 300 workers back on the job, some 800 workers are now active at the site, just 10% of the 8,000 working on-site prior to the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.
Read More “Workers Begin Returning to Shell Cracker Plant Construction Site”
In September 2017 to much fanfare, CSX (railroad company) announced the opening of its new Pittsburgh Intermodal Rail Terminal in McKees Rocks, PA. The new facility is a truck and railroad transloading facility connecting southwestern Pennsylvania to markets across the country and around the world. CSX said at the time, “The Pittsburgh intermodal terminal is the last key component of CSX’s National Gateway Initiative, an $850 million public-private partnership designed to create a highly efficient network of double-stack rail and intermodal terminals, connecting East Coast markets to consumers, manufacturers and businesses in the Midwest.” That was then, this is now.
Read More “Shell Leases CSX Truck/Rail Terminal Near Pittsburgh for Cracker”