Shell advances project to build US petchem complex

Houston, Texas – After more than a year of little movement, Shell Chemical LP again is taking steps toward building a major plastics and petrochemicals plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

On 12 June, Houston-based Shell bought almost 800 acres of land in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, from Horsehead Corp. for $13.5 million. Horsehead previously had operated a zinc operation on the land, and Shell would be able to use existing infrastructure there for its petrochemicals project.

Then, on 18 June, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued air and water permits for the project. Preliminary plans filed with the DEP show that the site would have three polyethylene resin production lines with combined annual capacity of 3.5 billion pounds.

The site also would have an ethylene manufacturing line with annual capacity of 3.3 billion pounds, as well as seven ethane cracking furnaces. Shell officials previously had said the site could source ethane from natural gas in the nearby Marcellus and Utica shale regions.

Shale gas and oil production from those regions has skyrocketed in recent years through the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

Numerous polymer makers — including Dow Chemical Co. and ExxonMobil Chemical —are at work on PE and ethylene expansion projects, but most of those projects are on the US Gulf Coast, where most North American resin production traditionally has been located.

Shell officials could not be reached for comment. They previously have said that no final decision on going ahead with the project has been made. Their last public exchange took place in April 2014, when they met with more than 1,000 area residents to discuss the project at a town hall meeting in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

The project first was proposed by Shell in early 2012. Later that year, Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett signed legislation that could give Shell tax credits worth $1.7 billion or more for 25 years beginning in 2017 if the plant is built.