SEPA Town Votes to Allow Mariner East 2 Across Town Land
MDN has previously highlighted the fight to build the Mariner East 2 pipeline. Town by town, opponents of the pipeline have tried to stop it with zoning regulations. And town by town, those efforts are failing. A prime example is Middletown, PA, in Delaware County (near Philadelphia). The Middletown Town Council voted earlier this month to put an ordinance on the docket for council members to vote on at the Sept. 26 meeting, an ordinance that if passed, will allow Sunoco LP to move forward with building the pipeline on public land in the town–in one case across a park, and in another close to an elementary school (see PA Town’s Angst Over Mariner East 2 Pipeline Near School, Park). Town council members faced heaving criticism and opposition, but in the end they did the right thing. Monday night the Town Council voted to grant permits to Mariner East 2, provided there are certain safeguards…
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Sometimes the boneheaded decisions of others can benefit us. Take, for example, Scotland–where the government has placed a moratorium on fracking until…until the cows come home? Or is it sheep? The Swiss-based company INEOS is a young but rapidly growing chemical company with roughly $40 billion in sales per year. INEOS’ competitors would be companies like BASF, Bayer and Dow Chemical. INEOS has its fingers in a lot of pies. One of those pies is an ethane cracker plant in Grangemouth, Scotland. Because Scotland has not, and apparently will not, frack its own abundant, clean supply of natural gas (which would produce associated amounts of ethane), INEOS is forced to look elsewhere for large supplies of ethane–or shut the plant down. Rather than shut it down, INEOS has contracted with Marcellus/Utica drillers who send their ethane to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia where it then gets loaded onto ships the length of two football fields–to carry the ethane to places like Grangemouth. The first such shipment of Marcellus/Utica ethane heading to Grangemouth is set to arrive over the next few days. And Scotland’s tragic loss is our great gain, because INEOS has signed contracts to keep our ethane flowing to Grangemouth for the next 15 years…
This story is unbelievable on so many levels. A pointy-headed liberal who cloisters himself inside the insular Beltway of Washington, DC made a trip to Pittsburgh last week to talk to a small class of 70 students at Carnegie Mellon University. In this talk the lib proclaimed that the “incentives” provided by PA to Shell to lure a cracker plant to the state are, essentially, monies the state didn’t have to spend and a burden to the taxpayers of PA because Ohio and West Virginia may also reap some of the benefits of the cracker (without “paying” for it). The lib’s operating assumption is that 100% of everyone’s money belongs to the all-knowing government–including money made by big, evil corporations like Shell. He further states that by granting a few exemptions on taxes to Shell, PA is taking money out of the pockets of common folk. His philosophy and assumptions are so twisted it’s beyond belief. What’s more twisted is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote a major story about the talk–as if it’s news…
A great article in Investor’s Business Daily explores the link between shale gas and the “explosive expansion” of the U.S. petrochemical industry. Part of the petchem supply chain is finding a cheap source of ethylene, the raw material used in making all sorts of plastics products. Manufacturers get ethylene from ethane cracker plants. The article discusses that link, and the reasons why Shell chose to locate their new multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant near Pittsburgh. As you can guess, economics play a major role in such a decision. Here are the specific economics that convinced Shell that PA is a good bet…
Last week MDN reported that Dennis Davin, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) had gone on a roadshow to three counties that will be most affected by Shell’s ethane cracker plant planned for Beaver County (see 
A banker, a real estate developer and a natural gas drilling company rep walk into a bar… No wait! This isn’t a joke! A banker, a real estate developer and a natgas drilling rep were panelists at seminar held yesterday, organized by the Pittsburgh Business Times. Even though there has been a major slowdown in Marcellus/Utica drilling, all three panelists were upbeat and optimistic–in no small part because of the coming Shell ethane cracker in nearby Beaver County. One comment made about the Shell cracker: “We’re not just building a facility; we’re building an industry.” That’s just how major the Shell project will be in the greater Pittsburgh area. Another comment: “The Marcellus Shale is not in the tank…It has slowed down, which is typical of industries that are sensitive to price cycles, [but] it’s consistent, affordable and is stable.” More interesting tidbits from the PBT soiree…
We suppose we should have known, but we didn’t. We didn’t know that Pennsylvania has a Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED). In fact, the DCED has its own cabinet-level Secretary–Dennis Davin–appointed by Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf in January 2015 when Wolf assumed office. Davin has stayed largely under the radar–until now. Wolf has sent Davin out on a road show to promote the forthcoming Shell ethane cracker plant. Davin is conducting roundtable discussions in various communities around PA to generate ideas on how local businesses can benefit from the cracker. So far he’s visited Beaver County (where the cracker will be built), Lawrence County and Washington County. The DCED is flooding the airways with press releases about Davin’s cracker road show…
All the way back in February MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see 
