Truth Told @ Marcellus and Manufacturing Conference in Morgantown
Natural gas was front and center at the ninth annual Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference, an event of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, held yesterday in Morgantown, WV. Among the speakers was Steve Winberg, U.S. Department of Energy assistant secretary for fossil energy. He mouthed strong support for the Appalachian Basin ethane “hub” saying the region can easily support up to five ethane crackers, and that could lead to $35 billion of investment and 100,000 jobs in the region.
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Ohio Congressman Bill Johnson is “urging patience” with PTT Global Chemical and their long-overdue final investment decision (FID) to move forwarding with building what is now being called a $7-$10 billion ethane cracker complex in Dilles Bottom (Belmont County), OH.
Some major news coming from yesterday’s Utica Midstream conference held in North Canton, Ohio. A rep from Marathon Petroleum (which is based in Ohio) told conference attendees his company is contemplating building an underground NGL storage facility in Harrison County, OH–to store ethane, butane and propane.
Every now and again we traffic in rumors here on MDN, but we do so rarely and only when we trust the source of the rumor. We have such a rumor to share, from a source we trust implicitly. We’ve been carping for over a year that PTT Global Chemical has repeatedly violated our deep well of patience by hinting that a “final investment decision” (FID) is “coming soon” for their $7-$10 billion ethane cracker complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
As we keep pointing out, PTT Global Chemical, the company that says they want to build a $6 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH, keeps hinting that a “final investment decision” (FID) will come soon. Any day now. Just around the corner. They’ve been saying it for nearly two years.
PTT Global Chemical has made and broken so many promises about the timing of a decision to build a $6 (lately cited as $10) billion ethane cracker in Belmont County, we’ve lost track of the number broken deadlines. Don’t get us wrong. We still hope and believe the project will happen, but we’ve grown weary of the delays in an announcement. And we don’t even live in the region!
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.
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