Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Beaver County | Energy Companies | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Shell
MDN Featured in PublicSource Story re Shell’s PA Cracker
More than a month ago MDN editor Jim Willis was contacted by PublicSource, an independent non-profit news organization based in Pittsburgh. A reporter wanted to know if Jim would grant an interview as part of a story he was doing on the Shell cracker, pipelines and the petchem industry in southwest Pennsylvania. Jim said yes.
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Ethane exports came from nowhere, dead zero, three years ago and took off like gangbusters until mid-last year, in no small part because of Marcellus/Utica ethane exports coming from the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. But part of the way through last year those exports began to decline–and not because of lack of ethane flowing through the Mariner East pipelines. Nope. They declined due to lack of demand.
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of West Virginia (IOGAWV) held its annual winter meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was a LOT of talk of WV nabbing the much-talked-about multi-billion dollar NGL storage hub project.
Shell has calmed the troubled Ambridge waters–that is, the Ambridge Water Authority waters. Shell hit a snag with plans to build its Falcon Ethane Pipeline when the Ambridge Water Authority claimed construction of the pipeline under several streams feeding the Ambridge reservoir would endanger the drinking water for 30,000 people (see 
Is anyone surprised that the $6 billion ethane cracker plant complex proposed by PTT Global Chemical for Belmont County, OH did not, as previously promised, announce a final investment decision (FID) in 2018? We sure weren’t.
Following an extensive (underscore extensive) review, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has approved the permit applications for Shell’s Falcon ethane pipeline project.
Last week the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency held an information session (to give out info) along with a public hearing (to accept comments) on the draft air pollution permit for PTT Global Chemical’s proposed ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
Still no sign from PTT Global Chemical that they will announce a final decision to proceed with building a $6 billion ethane cracker in Belmont County, OH, by the end of this year. The project was first announced in April 2015 (see 
Last Friday three county commissioners from Belmont County, OH took a field trip to visit Beaver County, PA, touring the Shell ethane cracker site and talking with Beaver County officials about how the project has impacted that area. Tuesday night, a member of the Potter Township (PA) Board of Supervisors came to a meeting of local leaders in Belmont County, to talk about the Shell cracker project and what such a project in Belmont could do for the Ohio Valley. PTT Global Chemical is supposedly close to making a final investment decision on building a cracker in Belmont. The interesting comment coming from Tuesday’s meeting was about the timing of a decision to build the PTT cracker: “It [the decision] will be revealed by the end of the year.” So says Belmont officials.
On numerous occasions we’ve pointed out the lunacy of the “keep it in the ground” gang–those who believe we should end the use of all fossil fuels as soon as possible. Why can’t we do it? For many reasons. Here’s just one: petrochemicals. Did you know that all sorts of products you use every day–things like plastics, fertilizers, packaging, clothing, digital devices, medical equipment, detergents and tires–come from oil and gas? Without oil and gas, we’d quickly descend back into the Stone Age, living short, brutish lives. That point was driven home in a new report titled “The Future of Petrochemicals” (full copy below), part of an International Energy Agency (IEA) series that shines a light on “blind spots” in the global energy system.
On Sunday, what will be the tallest and heaviest piece of equipment that’s part of the mighty $6 billion Shell ethane cracker in Monaca (Beaver County), PA was hoisted into place. It’s called a “quench tower” and it looks like a humongous silo. It’s 300-feet high, which translates into about 30 stories. One of the world’s largest cranes had to be reserved a year ago in order to do the lifting. It took all day, but by 3:30 pm, the quench tower was standing upright–yet another monument to the power of the Marcellus Shale.
PTT Global Chemical announced in April 2015 they want to build a $6 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
Some 200 business and government leaders in West Virginia attended the state’s Economic Outlook Conference in Charleston this past Wednesday. A key focus of the event was a panel discussion on the topic of “downstream” natural gas development–meaning ethane cracker plants and manufacturing plants to take advantage of the coming flood of cheap plastics from cracker plants. The speakers spoke of urgency, to prevent a generational opportunity from slipping away.
Without natural gas, modern life as humans know it would cease. And no, that’s not hyperbole or bluster. And yet, non-thinking anti-fossil fuel protesters refuse to acknowledge that basic truth. We spotted an excellent article in Forbes that outlines the vital importance of shale gas (specifically the ethane that comes as part of shale gas extraction). We love the straightforward simplicity of the article in describing how the shale ecosystem works–and how it touches on virtually every aspect of our modern existence.