Beaver County

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    Shell Announces Location of Ethane Cracker Plant

    monaca-paStop Press: Shell Chemical has selected a location in Beaver County, Pennsylvania to potentially build an ethane cracker plant. Shell announced yesterday afternoon that the company has signed a land option agreement with Horsehead Corporation to “evaluate a site” near Monaca, PA, which is about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, along the Ohio River (see the inset map). The site is about 15 miles from the borders of both West Virginia and Ohio, so Shell chose a location about as close to the tri-state border as it could get.

    This is headliner news because the facility itself will mean at least $2 billion of investment to build, creating some 10,000 jobs both to build it and to operate it after it’s built. One of the components of “wet gas” or natural gas liquids found more often in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio is ethane. An ethane cracker plant chemically “cracks” the ethane into ethylene, which is a raw material used to make plastics and other materials. With an abundant supply of wet Marcellus and Utica Shale gas, the plant will have plenty of cheap ethane to crack.

    Once the plant is built, other businesses that use cheap ethylene to manufacture plastics will also locate in the vicinity of the plant. The multiplier effect will be huge in the entire region—some estimates are as high as $15-$20 billion of new economic activity could come as a result of the plant.

    All three states lobbied Shell heavily, offering various incentives to locate the plant in their state. A few weeks ago, MDN readers and MDN editor Jim Willis had some fun predicting where the plant may go. Jim was wrong! He predicted it would be built in West Virginia’s panhandle for a variety of reasons (see this MDN story). However, MDN readers guessed correctly. In a poll taken Feb. 12-18, 42 percent of MDN readers said the plant would be built in PA, 31 percent said OH and 27 percent said WV. Kudos to MDN’s readers!

    Read More “Shell Announces Location of Ethane Cracker Plant”

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    Drilling in the Utica Shale in PA – Ranges Says Yes, Williams Says No

    The Marcellus Shale layer is about a mile down, depending on where you are. Lately, there’s been talk about tapping into the Utica Shale, which sits below the Marcellus, at about two miles down. A recent permit granted to Williams Production Appalachia to drill its exploratory well deeper on Route 487 in Sugarloaf Township, Columbia County in Pennsylvania sparked rumors that Williams was planning to tap into the Utica. But a spokesperson for Williams, Helen Humphreys, says that’s not true:

    Read More “Drilling in the Utica Shale in PA – Ranges Says Yes, Williams Says No”

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    Range Resources Looks for Gas Deposits in Beaver County, PA

    The Beaver County & Allegheny Times Online news site reports Range Resources has hired Conquest Seismic Services to vibrate the ground around Hopewell and Independence Townships, located in Beaver County, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh).

    For now, Range is looking along Route 151, according to Dave Schieck, a geophysicist for Range Resources. But don’t look for production wells for quite a few years:

    “We’re looking here, and we’ll be looking in the northern part of Beaver County later on,” Schieck said of a stretch between Zelienople and the Beaver River. “It may be as much as a decade before any extraction takes place here, but I’d bet we’ll see some once the area is ready.”

    Read the full article: Company vibrating ground in search of natural gas