A followup to the Oct. 8 articles on a potential cracker plant in McDonald.....

 

Utica shale potential means Ohio may yet get ‘cracker’ plant, chemical exec says

Business First by Jeff Bell, Staff reporter

Date: Friday, November 9, 2012, 2:10pm EST

 

Ohio’s hopes of landing a coveted “cracker ” plant and the jobs and capital investment it would generate may not be dead after all.

 

I picked up on that this week during an interview with Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical industry. We were talking about all the investments being made by companies in Ohio because of the Utica shale play, which you can read about in this week’s paper.

 

I asked Dooley about Ohio’s chances of landing a cracker, a plant that converts ethane, a so-called “wet gas” extracted from shale gas formations, to ethylene, which is used in the production of chemicals that go into plastics, tires and other products. Ohio officials had hoped Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE:RDS.A) would pick the state for its proposed $2 billion cracker plant, but the company said in March it has selected a site in western Pennsylvania instead.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/2012/11/utica-shale-potential-means-ohio-may.html

This article has implications for the Utica/Marcellus region too....

 

Rail's new oil rush

Calgary firm will ship via CN to U.S

By Dave Cooper, Edmonton Journal; With Files From Reuters And Bloomberg November 10, 2012

 

In a market that is short on pipeline space and heavy crude sells at a big discount, one oilsands producer has found a way around the bottleneck.

 

Southern Pacific Resources, which began trucking out initial production from its new McKay Thermal Project three weeks ago, will open a dedicated rail terminal in a few weeks just south of Fort McMurray and ship its product in leased tanker cars via CN Rail all the way to Natchez, Miss.

 

From there, it's just a short barge ride down the Mississippi River to one of the eight refineries in Louisiana, where the crude will fetch $20 to $30 a barrel more than it could at the congested terminal hub in Cushing, Okla.

 

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Rail+rush/7529687/story.html#ixzz2C3RpbqN4

Supposedly there is some imperative to frack our oil and gas reserves as fast a possible so that America can become "energy independent".  The oil companies in North Dakota are wasting a lot of the natural gas that they are extracting by "flaring it".  They only want the oil and are too cheap and lazy to collect the gas.  Ohio should wait to extract the "Marcellus and Utica" shale gas since this is the case.

 

***

 

What we have here is an immense and startlingly new oil and gas field — nighttime evidence of an oil boom created by a technology called fracking. Those lights are rigs, hundreds of them, lit at night, or fiery flares of natural gas. One hundred fifty oil companies, big ones, little ones, wildcatters, have flooded this region, drilling up to eight new wells every day on what is called the Bakken formation. Altogether, they are now producing 660,000 barrels a day — double the output two years ago — so that in no time at all, North Dakota is now the second-largest oil producing state in America. Only Texas produces more, and those lights are a sign that this region is now on fire ... to a disturbing degree. Literally.

 

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a-mysterious-patch-of-light-shows-up-in-the-north-dakota-dark

^I know last March with the combination of a mild winter and so much new gas coming on the market for the reasons you explain above, there was no where to store it.  Salt mines were being purchased as temporary holding facilities.

 

 

Article from Columbus Business First about a new report from a bond rating firm the potential economic impact of the Utica and Marcellus shale plays in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York: Utica, Marcellus shale plays could represent more than $10 trillion in new economic activity

 

---

Columbus Business First also listed the top 5 Ohio counties for number of shale wells drilled: Countdown: Top counties for shale wells as Ohio crosses 200 mark

 

1) Carroll County - 80 wells

2) Columbiana County - 43 wells

3) Noble County - 24 wells

4) Jefferson County - 20 wells

5) Harrison County - 18 wells

Article from the Salem News regarding the processing plant in Columbiana County:

 

Construction of plant benefitting economy

 

By KATIE SCHWENDEMAN - Staff writer Salem News

 

KENSINGTON - On a hill between state Route 644 and Tunnel Hill Road people from as far away as New Zealand are coming together to build the county's first natural gas processing plant, and the surrounding area is already reaping the benefits.

 

Baron John, a New Zealand native who came to the states by way of Australia, plans to make Minerva his home as he digs his heels into the three-phase $400 million project that will continue over the coming years.

 

Other workers at the 170-acre site are also planning to stay long-term, he said.

 

More at: http://www.salemnews.net/page/content.detail/id/562694/Construction-of-plant-benefitting-economy.html?nav=5007

 

 

I apologize in advance if this question annoys anyone as I have not been really following all the details of this fracking business. I've heard its good for Ohio, PA, and NY. But specifically, where will see economic growth from a city perspective? Is it Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, all of these? Should we expect a flood of people, new office and apartment towers, new flights to energy cities like Rio, Lagos, Houston, or Calgary? Other than activity at the well sites, has there been any real economic development in terms of building (not just paying fees/taxes) anywhere as a result of this fracking business?

Pittsburgh has done a good job at snaring regional offices for the major energy companies, as well as local energy companies that have grown fast and needed lots of downtown office space fast. Here's a recent article....

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-09/pittsburgh-rebound-sparked-by-spurned-gas-frackers

 

What's remarkable is driving through towns in/near Washington, PA, southwest of Pittsburgh, which is the heart of drilling country and where processing plants and distributors are locating. Many of those towns have come back to life from being near dead. There's traffic on the roads again, abandoned rail lines being reactivated (see my photo thread on the Westland Branch) and construction/surveying activity occurring everywhere.

 

There has also been much activity in the Youngstown-Warren area, which has positioned itself well to be the "toolbox" for the nat-gas industry. It has attracted billions of dollars of new or expanded plants in recent years to provide manufacturing activities, including raw steel, finished steel (ie pipe), pumping/valves equipment, components, water treatment facilities, brine/salt processing, etc.

 

I wish you could have seen little old Girard, Ohio, just of I-80, just a few years ago. It had been dead since the steel mills closed 30 years earlier. Most of the downtown shops were closed and the city was in fiscal emergency. Then came V&M Steel which announced its $650 million, 1+ million square foot mill expansion. It took a mill that had closed in 1979, modernized it, and then added the huge expansion. It is expanding further by reactivating or building more facilities so that the mill property is now 2 miles long!

 

And Girard has gone from a town in fiscal emergency and a dead downtown, to one with stabilized finances and where most stores downtown are open and active. It's worth seeing for yourself.

 

BTW, Canton has also grabbed some energy company regional offices as noted here:

http://terrycoyne.blogspot.com/2013/01/2012-cre-year-in-review.html

The reporting I've been seeing in Business First describes the "Utica and Marcellus shale plays" as being in the very early stages of development in Ohio.  As such, many of the companies and workers that specialize in "fracking" are coming into Ohio from out of state.  Some as far away as Oklahoma and Texas.  And many of these early operations have been on a migrant basis.

 

But as KJP points out, some regional offices are starting to put down roots in Ohio.  And if the shale plays prove valuable, this activity should pick up steam.  Certainly the environmental effects from fracking need to be carefully considered.  But it is interesting that the shale play area overlaps two of the most economically devastated regions in Ohio.  The Youngstown steel industry region and the southeast Ohio coal industry region.

 

The outside activity and money being pumped into these two regions is huge (as KJP notes).  And I wouldn't discount the fees and taxes generated by this activity either.  These areas desperately need the revenue.  As long as we keep a close watch on the environmental effects, this could be a huge win for Ohio.

^"Like eds and meds, like steel once was in Pittsburgh, it would be the industry to grow and employ people and turn the economy around,” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, 32, said of gas extraction." 

 

Pittsburgh has a 32-year old mayor?

 

Capitalizing on fracking---that's good for pittsburgh and SE Ohio.  Any chance of benefits to Cleveland? Or is Cleveland too far away from the action? and/or too slow/late to grab it?

 

I wish you could have seen little old Girard, Ohio, just of I-80, just a few years ago.

 

I think I saw a recent photo thread on it---it looked like a nice little town.

What is interesting is that many of the executives at these regional offices are renting their housing. Either that is because the housing market is still weak or because they question whether their activities here are more of a start-up nature and may not have a long-term future.  They may be here just to poke some holes in the ground, get the infrastructure set up and then walk away.

 

I am more interested in what this region can do to capitalize on the spin off benefits, such as in the manufacture of plastics, polymers, petro-chemicals, fertilizers (don't joke, Europe imports much of its fertilizers -- could benefit port of Cleveland, Ashtabula, etc), salts (14,000 different industrial uses for salt) and more.

 

That "more" also can include being a place to locate any industry that is powered by natural gas. As companies consider "re-shoring" their manufacturing activities, this regional may be very attractive to them......

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509291/shale-gas-will-fuel-a-us-manufacturing-boom/

 

http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/12-10-30-1.php?cid=6379

 

http://enr.construction.com/economics/quarterly_cost_reports/2012/0625-manufacturingmakeover.asp

I've worked with a lot of these TX people and they rather openly do not like Ohio.  Neither their trucks nor their boots are ever supposed to encounter actual mud.  They enjoy pointing out how much more poor we are here, and how poor we look.

 

Pittsburgh is the biggest city that's actually within the play.  Much of the investment for this has been and will be in that area.  These folks are not urbanists and tend to prefer suburban campuses anyway.  Chesapeake has proposed one in Louisville.

2. Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy (CHK) who apparently has trouble keeping his company’s finances and his own apart. According to Reuters, McClendon borrowed as much as $1.1 billion over three years in undisclosed loans against his stake in thousands of company wells and ran a $200 million oil-and-gas hedge fund on the side, an “obvious conflict of interest,” Finkelstein says. Use of the company jet (and company employees) for personal purposes and a corporate sponsorship deal for Oklahoma City Thunder while McClendon was an owner of the basketball team also didn’t help. Jim Gipson, a spokesman for Chesapeake Energy, declined to comment.

 

undisclosed loans http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/18/us-chesapeake-mcclendon-deals-idUSBRE83H0FN20120418

 

$200 million oil-and-gas hedge fund http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/07/us-chesapeake-mcclendon-hedge-idUSBRE8410GG20120507

 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-13/the-worst-ceos-of-2012

 

Good ol' Aubrey.... But his company's troubles and the bottoming-out of CHK's stock price (IMHO) makes this a potential good deal for bargain hunters.

Houston firm pumping $450M more into Utica shale venture

By Evan Weese, Web coordinator

Business First - Feb 6, 2013, 12:32pm EST

 

Houston investment firm Energy & Minerals Group is increasing its stake by another $450 million in a joint venture with Denver’s MarkWest Energy Partners LP to support the Utica shale play in eastern Ohio.  The increase brings the companies’ total investment in MarkWest Utica EMG LLC to $950 million, deepening its presence throughout the Utica shale region and helping its planned processing operations keep pace with drilling.

 

With a planned processing plant and pipelines in Harrison County, MarkWest is set to meet key infrastructures needs in Ohio’s shale gas boom.  Early results from producers including Antero Resources, Gulfport Energy Corp. and Rex Energy spurred additional investment from EMG in the joint venture.

 

READ MORE: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2013/02/06/houston-firm-pumping-450m-more-into.html

Columbus' NBC4 has been doing some excellent investigative reporting about the moving and disposal of wastewater used in the fracking process.  Some of it comes from Ohio wells.  But much of it is imported from adjacent states like PA and WV.  Links to two recent video reports below:

 

NBC4: Fracking Waste Water

 

NBC4: Fracking Wastewater Being Barged?

EPA official: D&L owner dumped drilling waste 6 times before getting caught

Published: Mon, February 11, 2013 @ 3:42 p.m.

 

An official with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday that the embattled owner of D&L Energy and Hardrock Excavating, Ben W. Lupo, admitted to state officials that he has dumped drilling waste at least six times prior to being caught on Jan. 31.

 

In each instance, Kurt Kollar, an on-scene coordinator with the OEPA’s division of Emergency and Remedial Response, told The Vindicator that employees were instructed to dump 42,000 gallons of brine material and oil-based mud.

 

...

 

http://www.vindy.com/news/2013/feb/11/epa-official-dampl-owner-dumped-drilling/

^Been the big story in the news around here for the past week.  I find in pathetic that Kasich allows both Pennsylvania and West Virginia's waste water to be stored in Ohio.  Not like Pennsylvania and West Virginia have screwed up their environments enough, lets bring us down to their level.  This dumping is just the beginning.

Disposal operator facing federal charges over Youngstown storm drain dumping allegations

By Jeff Bell, Staff reporter

Business First - Feb 15, 2013, 12:35pm EST

 

Youngstown business owner Ben Lupo has been charged with violating the federal Clean Water Act in connection with the alleged dumping of oil-field waste into a storm drain that empties into a tributary of the Mahoning River.  Lupo, owner of D&L Energy and Hardrock Excavating, was charged Thursday in federal court in Youngstown and entered a not guilty plea.  If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a year of supervised release.

 

Lupo is accused of directing an employee to illegally discharge brine and oil-based drilling mud into the storm drain, said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office. ... The state Department of Natural Resources revoked the operating permits for D&L and Hardrock after the incident.  D&L operates injection wells used to dispose of fracking fluids from oil and gas drilling operations.  Hardrock hauls oil-field wastes.

 

READ MORE: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/2013/02/disposal-operator-facing-federal.html

Oh kay....

 

Proof That Fracking’s Aftermath Led to 109 Ohio Earthquakes

 

By Slate V Staff

Posted Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/trending/2013/09/05/fracking_causes_earthquakes_scientists_offer_proof_in_new_study_of_ohio.html

I'm not sure the disposal of liquid wastes, regardless of source, belongs in the fracking thread. It's not the fracking that's causing it. If I disposed of any kind of liquid waste (name an activity, like washing polluted industrial buildings, etc) in a deep well, we wouldn't be trying to ban the washing of buildings. Its how the waste is being disposed of that's the problem.

The ethical way to deal with used "fracking fluids" was to pay municipal sewer systems to process it. But municipal systems could not remove the sodium chloride, and salt levels became a problem the Monongahela River. Drillers in Pennsylvania planned to truck waste fluids to Ohio, where the bedrock was permeable and suitable, unlike PA.  Injection wells should have solved the problem for eternity, but it is not working out. They could and should reprocess the water in it and save all that wasted energy to truck tons of the stuff across state lines. Why aren't they doing that?

From what I understand permanently removing water from the water cycle is a controversial practice. I know of no other instance where this occurs other than with fracking.

I don't think these fracking companies are making any money anyway. Each hole only pays for the next one.

From what I understand permanently removing water from the water cycle is a controversial practice. I know of no other instance where this occurs other than with fracking.

 

As long as the water stays on this earth, I don't see how it's possible to permanently remove it from the water cycle.

From what I understand permanently removing water from the water cycle is a controversial practice. I know of no other instance where this occurs other than with fracking.

 

As long as the water stays on this earth, I don't see how it's possible to permanently remove it from the water cycle.

 

Once injected the wastewater is no longer capable of supplying streams, rivers, lakes, or even underground reservoirs.  If you read pro-fracking literature, it's no big deal. If you read anti-fracking material, it is a big deal.

 

As in this article, one can reason that the weight of the issue can be affected by whether the specific location is water plentiful or not. That's also the contention of my friend who is a hydrologist. But again, I've no idea either way, I just read and hear stuff. And my friend is constantly wrong about other things lol, so who knows.

 

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/02/14/water-use-in-fracking-draws-legislatures-attention/

There are pockets of water naturally buried deep within the earth. Besides, with sea level rise resulting from global warming, we have to put all that excess water somewhere.....

KJP, it's going to take a whole lot of energy to clean up that water and remove the salt from the seawater. Seawater ---> freshwater conversion still isn't read for prime time on a large scale.

Pssst. I'm being ironical.

Ohio's gas boom is still in the future, says CSU economist

 

 

Lendel said projections also did not take into account that gas producers like Chesapeake had operations in many states and would make drilling decisions based on their own bottom lines.

 

...  they were way off in their estimates of how fast the gas processors and pipeline companies, called  "midstream" companies in the industry, would commit the billions of dollars it would take to build facilities in Ohio to clean the raw gases and separate them into methane, propane, ethane and other gases, she said.

 

"What we see now, the midstream companies were very careful, and they are weighing their decisions on the how much (gas) and the quality of what is coming from (Ohio) shale," she said.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/09/ohios_gas_boom_is_still_in_the.html

Potentially big development for the Ashtabula area:

http://inashtabulacounty.com/news/2013/09/24/refinery-planned-port-ashtabula/

Are things finally starting to happen here?

 

These aren't big numbers yet, but at least they're starting to go up at a rapid pace.

 

Production in Ohio’s Utica shale rising fast

Ohio energy companies extracted more than twice as much oil and gas from the Utica shale in the third quarter of 2013 as they did in all of 2012, according to new figures issued by the state.

 

Although that might seem like a dramatic increase, the spike in production was not unexpected, considering the increase in active wells, industry experts say.

 

The numbers are part of the first-ever quarterly report on the Utica shale, the result of a new state law that requires companies to file a report each quarter as opposed to once a year.

 

In the quarter that ended in September, 245 wells produced a total of 1.3 million barrels of oil and 33.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

 

Ohio’s 245 Utica shale wells producing at a rate of $1 billion a year

The typical Utica shale well in eastern Ohio produced 137,168 thousand cubic feet of natural gas and 5,439 barrels of liquids from July through September, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

 

That is enough natural gas to generate about $550,000 and enough oil to generate an additional $490,000 from each of the state’s first 245 Utica shale wells.

On an annualized basis, those Ohio wells could be producing nearly $1 billion in oil and gas.

 

“Those are very good numbers,” said Jeff Daniels, a geophysicist at Ohio State University, co-director of the university’s Sub-Surface Energy Resources Center and an expert on Utica shale drilling. “They’re high but they don’t shock me.”

 

One oil company executive recently told a Pittsburgh conference that one of its Utica wells was producing enough natural gas and oil in 12 months to pay for all costs associated with drilling and fracking the well, Daniels said.

 

Such wells cost $6 million to $10 million.

 

EIA data is charted here. Might not correspond directly to Ohio DNR data since the EIA does more estimating, while it sounds like the Ohio DNR does more actual counting of production from each well.

I've noticed lately there are a lot of railroad tank cars designed to carry petroleum on trains traveling to and through Northeast Ohio lately. In fact, I've sometimes seen entire trains of them. I read most of the rail industry publications and tank car manufacturers and leasing companies have their hands full right now.

Mar 4, 2014, 11:16am EST UPDATED: Mar 4, 2014, 4:16pm EST

Houston driller indifferent about Utica shale after wells prove disappointing

Tom Knox

Reporter- Columbus Business First

 

At least one drilling company doesn’t see Ohio’s Utica shale play through rose-colored glasses.

 

Halcon Resources Corp., a Houston-based energy business with 11 horizontal well permits in eastern Ohio, has no plans to drill there this year, CEO Floyd Wilson told analysts. Three of Halcon’s wells in Trumbull County and one in Mahoning County are producing. There rest are in various stages of readiness, according to the latest data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

 

Halcon (NYSE:HK), with revenue of $248 million in 2012, owns 139,000 acres in the Utica play, including in western Pennsylvania.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/2014/03/houston-driller-indifferent-about.html

This could also have gone in a rail thread I suppose...

 

From WOSU:    Increased Ohio Shale Fracking Drives Demand For Rail Improvements

 

The number of hydraulically fractured wells drilled in Ohio has now topped 800. About half of those wells are producing natural gas and oil.

 

While debates over safety and severance taxes continues, production is reaching critical mass. And that has created need for more railroad capacity. The rail improvements have rippled into Frazeysburg and Columbus.

 

 

http://wosu.org/2012/news/2014/04/14/increased-ohio-shale-fracking-drives-demand-for-rail-improvements/

North Dakota recently discovered piles of garbage bags containing radioactive waste dumped by oil drillers in abandoned buildings. Now, the state is trying to catch up to an oil industry that produces an estimated 27 tons of radioactive debris from wells daily.

...

Even though it is illegal, contractors have taken the occasional shortcut to dump the oil socks in buildings, on the side of the road, or at landfills. And the rate of dumping incidents has been on the rise as drilling activity has increased in the Bakken shale region, according to one North Dakota Department of Health study. Dump operators now even routinely screen garbage for radiation.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/16/3427345/north-dakota-radioactive-waste-fracking/

 

Mafioso used to charge companies to haul off hazardous waste: they would drop the barrels off in a rented warehouse in Cleveland then abandon them. They had rented the warehouses with a sham front company that could not be traced to any *real* owners. I saw that on 60 Minutes a few decades ago.

From Crains Cleveland Business......

 

BP America abandoning plans to develop Utica shale, including mineral rights on 80,000 acres in eastern Ohio

A spokesman for BP said the company completed its initial wells here, looked at its global portfolio and decided to deploy its assets elsewhere.

Oklahoma company to expand footprint, investment in Utica shale

By DAN SHINGLER

11:04 am, May 12, 2014

 

The Utica shale got a vote of confidence on Monday, May 12, as one of its major midstream development companies announced it was expanding its footprint and investment in the play to keep up with the amount of gas drillers expect to produce for processing and transport.

 

Oklahoma-based Access Midstream Partners announced a major expansion of its Utica East Ohio midstream service complex, which already includes a major cryogenic processing facility in Columbiana County and a natural gas liquids transportation hub and storage facilities in Harrison County. Utica East Ohio will increase its processing capacity to 1.1 billion cubic feet of gas per day — up from the 600 million cubic feet per day of capacity that it initially announced for its Ohio operations when it began investing here two years ago.

 

“Additional capacity is needed to meet new commitments from existing customers Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Total Gas & Power North America, Enervest Ltd. and new customer, American Energy Utica LLC, an affiliate of American Energy Partners LP,” Access said in a news release announcing the expansion.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20140512/FREE/140519980#email_daily

http://www.wfmj.com/story/25705364/chesapeake-energy-charged-with-fraud-and-racketeering

 

Chesapeake... allegedly directed their agents to recruit multiple landowners across Northern Michigan to lease their land to Chesapeake the summer of 2010. Allegedly, landowners often notified the agents of existing mortgages on the land to be leased, and the agents allegedly indicated the mortgages would not be an obstacle.

 

When competition from competitors stopped, Chesapeake – through its leasing agents including OIL Niagaran and shell corporation, Northern Michigan Exploration – allegedly cancelled nearly all the leases, using mortgages as the purported basis for the cancellation. Schuette alleges Chesapeake therefore obtained uncompensated land options from these landowners by false pretenses, and prevented competitors from leasing the land.

...

Chesapeake already faces criminal charges filed by Schuette in March 2014 for alleged anti-trust violations with regard to private land leasing in the summer of 2010, and the state land auction held by the Department of Natural Resources in October 2010.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/13/us/oklahoma-earthquakes/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

 

Coming to a town near you

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/13/us/oklahoma-earthquakes/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

 

Coming to a town near you

 

Only where the fracking fluid is disposed of via injection wells. The fracking itself doesn't cause earthquakes.

But the fracking causes the fracking fluid, which must be disposed of.

But the fracking causes the fracking fluid, which must be disposed of.

 

Maybe they can store it in Yucca Mountain!

Ohio getting ethane cracker plant

By Tom Knox, Reporter

Columbus Business First - Aug 29, 2014, 2:51pm EDT

 

A billion-dollar ethane cracker plant for the oil and gas industry is crossing the Ohio River.  Now, the facility that was initially planned for West Virginia will be built in Monroe County.  Appalachian Resins Inc., a Houston company, has leased 50 acres of land in Salem Township to build a 600 million pound per year plant, the company told Downstream Today.

 

Such plants are highly sought.  West Virginia and Pennsylvania are also eyeing ethane cracker plants that process ethane and other natural gas components from the area’s Utica and Marcellus shale for use in the plastics industry.

 

MORE: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/ohio-energy-inc/2014/08/ohio-getting-ethane-cracker-plant.html

Ohio getting ethane cracker plant

By Tom Knox, Reporter

Columbus Business First - Aug 29, 2014, 2:51pm EDT

 

A billion-dollar ethane cracker plant for the oil and gas industry is crossing the Ohio River.  Now, the facility that was initially planned for West Virginia will be built in Monroe County.  Appalachian Resins Inc., a Houston company, has leased 50 acres of land in Salem Township to build a 600 million pound per year plant, the company told Downstream Today.

 

Such plants are highly sought.  West Virginia and Pennsylvania are also eyeing ethane cracker plants that process ethane and other natural gas components from the area’s Utica and Marcellus shale for use in the plastics industry.

 

MORE: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/ohio-energy-inc/2014/08/ohio-getting-ethane-cracker-plant.html

 

Those produce some decent rail traffic as bulk shipments of plastic pellets usually go by rail. My understanding is this plant was moved because the rail infrastructure along the Ohio side of the river is a better. It's a heavy-duty Norfolk Southern Corp. owned rail line. Akron's polymer plants could take advantage but their rail infrastructure to the south and east sucks. NS would probably have to reactivate an Akron Metro-owned rail line through Kent and Tallmadge or go northwest from Ravenna to then go south from Hudson into Akron. But none of these is idea. Akron's rail situation is not good. Akron Metro owns three rail lines into the city and lacks the capabilities to move quickly to rehab and reactivate them. They should transfer their control to the local port authority or to the private sector. Otherwise the polymer business may go elsewhere.

That will be serious cash flowing into Monroe County. More than it's ever seen.

That will be serious cash flowing into Monroe County. More than it's ever seen.

 

Ormet Aluminum had 5,000 employees. This cracker plant will employ maybe 150.

Boom in Energy Spurs Industry in the Rust Belt

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/business/an-energy-boom-lifts-the-heartland.html?emc=eta1&_r&_r=0

That will be serious cash flowing into Monroe County. More than it's ever seen.

 

Ormet Aluminum had 5,000 employees. This cracker plant will employ maybe 150.

 

I didn't know that many people worked at Ormet.

Thai/Japanese joint venture picks Belmont County for ethane cracker plant

By Tom Knox, Reporter - Columbus Business First

April 22, 2015, 2:31pm EDT

 

A Thai and Japanese joint venture has chosen Belmont County for a multibillion-dollar ethane cracker plant.  PTT Global Chemical Public Company Ltd. and Marubeni Corp. chose Ohio over West Virginia and Pennsylvania for the plant, which we first reported was in the works on Monday.  Gov. John Kasich and JobsOhio announced the decision Wednesday.

 

The plant would be built in Mead Township along the Ohio River on the site of a shuttered FirstEnergy Corp. plant.

 

PTT is the petrochemical subsidiary of PTT Public Company Ltd., a $92.6 billion state-owned business based in Bangkok.  Marubeni of Japan is the funding arm of the joint venture.  They have a lot of work to do before the plant is official.  The next step is the all-important engineering phase.  The companies expect to make a decision next year.  If complete, it could become operational in 2020.

 

MORE: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/ohio-energy-inc/2015/04/thai-japanese-joint-venture-picks-belmont-county.html