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Altoona Gas to Liquids Plant Will Qualify for 7-Year Tax Break

Marcellus GTL announced a few weeks ago they plan to build a $200 million gas to liquids (GTL) plant near Altoona, PA that will convert natural gas into gasoline and propane (see Altoona Area Getting $200M Marcellus Gas-to-Liquids Plant). If they start building by the end of this year, the company will qualify for up to seven years of tax abatement. That’s a pretty powerful reason to get building…

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Altoona Area Getting $200M Marcellus Gas-to-Liquids Plant

Gas-to-liquids (GTL) plants appear to be catching on in the PA Marcellus Shale. Last September MDN told you about plans to build a GTL plant in Karns City, PA (western part of the state, see Chemical Manufacturer to Build Gas-to-Liquids Plant in PA). GTL plants convert natural gas to other products like diesel fuel and gasoline.

Last week, a company announced in Altoona, PA that they plan to build a GTL plant in Blair County (central PA). Marcellus GTL said they will build a new $200 million (!) GTL plant in Duncansville. While the plant is being built it will provide 120 construction jobs. After it’s built, the plant will provide 30 full-time permanent positions working at the plant, and 60 “secondary jobs” in the area as well. The Duncansville GTL plant will produce sulfur-free gasoline and propane.

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Altoona Scores a New Pump Plant for the Marcellus

Gardner Denver, a 150 year-old global manufacturer of industrial compressors, blowers, pumps, loading arms and fuel systems has a new manufacturing facility to add to the 40 it already owns around the world. The new 70,000 foot facility is located at Tipton, near Altoona, PA. The new plant will manufacture and repair pumps used in hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale. Gardner Denver expects to employ 100 people at the new plant within a year.

But why locate the plant in Altoona, where there’s very little nearby drilling?

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PA Counties Band Together for Grant to Create Marcellus Jobs

A regional economic development group made up of officials from Blair, Cambria, Somerset, Huntingdon, Fulton and Bedford counties in Pennsylvania is asking the state for a $700,000 grant to help them help businesses located in the southern Allegheny region identify new business opportunities in the shale gas drilling industry. The group hopes that their geography, strategically located between PA’s northeastern and southwestern Marcellus gas fields, will bring new business to the area, and along with that new business, more jobs.

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PA Marcellus Drillers Extracting More Gas Faster

The PA Department of Environmental Protection reports Marcellus Shale drilling companies are extracting more gas faster—60 percent more gas in the first six months of this year, compared to the last six months of 2010. More wells are coming online in PA, and drillers are becoming more efficient and using less chemicals, water and sand as they learn how best to use the ingenious technology of hydraulic fracturing.

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