A proposed ethane cracker in eastern Ohio has taken another step forward, Kallanish Energy reports.
The giant international engineering firm Bechtel has announced it has been hired by Thailand’s PTT Global Chemical America and South Korea-based partner Daleim to build a $6 billion cracker.
A final investment decision has not yet been made.
The Bechtel announcement came last week at the Fourth Annual Northeast Petrochemical Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh, in a presentation by Bechtel’s senior vice president Paul Marsden. Kallanish Energy attended the two-day conference.
The plant would be constructed at Shadyside on the Ohio River in Belmont County. The 140-acre site is where a now-razed coal-fired power plant had operated. Tree clearing began on the site last year.
The plant, if built, would annually produce of 1.5 million tons of ethylene and other materials from ethane produced by shale drilling.
The plant would use six ethane cracking furnaces and manufacture ethylene, high-quality polyethylene and linear low-density polyethylene.
PTT Global Chemical America is a subsidiary of PTT Global Chemical, Thailand’s largest integrated petrochemical company.
Royal Dutch Shell is building a similar cracker in Beaver County west of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania.
In fact, Marsden is senior project manager for Bechtel for the Beaver County project. When asked if Bechtel’s high-profile invovlvement in the Shell cracker, and its soon-to-be hand on the Ohio cracker may pose problems, in terms of having enough personnel to build two massive projects simultaneously, Marsden said “no.”
“Synergy comes from overlapping projects,” Marsden said at the petrochemical conference. “However, if they are too close (in construction timeframes), it can drive up labor costs. But if the projects are too far away (in terms of timing), you will loose personnel because they cannot wait around and will be gone chasing the next job.”
