West Virginia might get a petrochemical complex

• Laura Legere
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  Laura Legere is a freelance journalist based in Scranton. She was previously a staff writer for the Scranton Times-Tribune, where her reporting on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale won Best in Show from the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors as well as awards from the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Inland Press Association and several state contests. She was a 2010 finalist for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. Laura was born and raised in Maine and holds degrees from Middlebury College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

While Pennsylvanians wait to see if a proposed ethane cracker plant will be built in Beaver County, West Virginia’s governor announced today that the neighboring state might host a cracker of its own.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said the Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht is exploring whether to develop a petrochemical complex in Parkersburg, about 150 miles southwest of the site where Royal Dutch Shell’s Beaver County plant is proposed. The West Virginia project would include an ethane cracker, three polyethylene plants and associated infrastructure for water treatment and energy co-generation.
A cracker converts ethane, a natural gas liquid produced in the Marcellus and Utica shales, into ethylene used to make plastics. Officials in both states see such plants as crucial to creating larger petrochemical hubs, which would support long-term jobs.
As in the case of the coveted Pennsylvania project, the feasibility of the West Virginia project will depend on many factors, including securing a long-term ethane supply.

Shell solicited bids for ethane to supply the proposed Beaver County plant in August and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said in April he expects to know early next year whether Shell will build the plant. But observers have raised questions recently about whether the plant would be viable now that several pipelines are planned to take the valuable ethane out of the region for processing.
A spokesman for Braskem America, the company that would lead the petrochemical aspects of the West Virginia development, told the Pittsburgh Business Times today that there is enough ethane to support more than one cracker in the region.
Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio each tried to entice Shell to put its planned cracker in their state, but the company picked a site near Monaca as its likely location in 2012. Pennsylvania lawmakers last year approved a tax break for cracker plants that could be worth more than $1.5 billion to Shell over 25 years if the plant is built.
Corbett was in Pittsburgh today to address an oil and gas industry conference, but he did not provide an update on Shell’s proposed cracker in his remarks.
Meanwhile, in West Virginia, Tomblin touched on the uncertainty.
“I can’t speak to what’s going on with Shell,” he said, according to the State Journal, “but I can say I feel very positive about the project we’re talking about here today.”
 

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