CRACKER PLANT IN MONACA, PA?? Shell's Option to Purchase Horsehead Site Expires June 30, 2013..

Does anyone know or has anyone heard whether Shell intends to exercise it option to purchase the old Horsehead Nickel site in Monaca, Beaver County, Pennsylvania? The original option to purchase was to expire at the end of 2012, but Shell obtained a 6 month extension. If Shell exercises its option this is very positive news. If Shell does not exercise its option, this would be a negative for western Pa. unless they had an alternate site in western Pa on which to build their proposed Cracker plant? I would think area newspapers and other media would be bombarding Shell with questions about its intentions. But so far I have seen nothing in the print media or elsewhere. Does anyone out there know anything?

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Permalink Reply by Trapper on June 27, 2013 at 7:50pm

Yes , Paleface. Heading south on Rt.376 (used to be Rt.60) it is on the right after crossing the bridge over the Ohio River. Nova Chemicals isn't far beyond it.

Thanks for sharing that tidbit with us Craig. Sounds reassuring to me!

Permalink Reply by paleface on June 27, 2013 at 8:37pm

So they could ship frozen LNG down the Ohio river to the Mississippi than to the Gulf for export sounds like a plan.

Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on June 27, 2013 at 9:41pm

Shell set river access as on of its criteria.  For one thing, I think most of the components for the plant will be built in Louisiana and shipped to the site for assembly. But they will also be shipping lots of materials by barge. The gas shipped there may have other components like propane or butane that will be separated and shipped out. The ethene produced will be shipped to customers.  Other ancillary plants will also want river access for their products so having river access makes a lot of sense.

This site was picked because it has everything. There are already several pipelines that run through there, river frontage with barge access, rail lines, two interstate highways, lots of power, water, sewage available.

The downsides are the potential site contamination problems (which much of the state aid is to offset), lack of local customer base for end products that the gulf has, low expertize in the field, tax and regulatory issues.

The big question is which is more economical, building the plant or more pipelines to ship raw gas to the gulf?

Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on June 27, 2013 at 10:13pm

If the plant  is built in Monaca could not part of the various petroleum fractions be connected to pipelines and sent to the Atlantic coast?

Permalink Reply by Trapper on June 28, 2013 at 3:34pm

Jim , Do you know if Nova Chemical has any connections to Shell?

Permalink Reply by Tim Tarr on June 28, 2013 at 11:02am

I still say it may be built in the Atlasburg area in Washington county, Pa.

Those EPA concerns about Monaca would be very high. Shell could be doing soil and ground water testing at Monaca. If those results and price for land are right they probably will build it there, but that's a very big if.

Permalink Reply by paleface on June 28, 2013 at 12:42pm

I wouldn't think the EPA would be to concerned with the Monaca sight.If EPA felt it needed some clean up  that could be delt with in various ways.The sight is not gonna be a housing development its gonna be a refinnery

Permalink Reply by Trapper on June 28, 2013 at 3:30pm

My thoughts exactly , paleface.

Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on June 28, 2013 at 1:11pm

I think we would all be quite happy to hear that the plant was definitely going to be built in western Pennsylvania irrespective of the exact location. I hope such an announcement is made soon and that construction begins as soon as is practicable. I do not care if it is built in Atlasburg, Monaca, or some other site so long as it is built in western Pennsylvania. The economic benefit to western Pennsylvania would be enormous!

Permalink Reply by Mike Knapp on June 28, 2013 at 4:17pm
Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on June 28, 2013 at 4:47pm

Thanks Mike! Excellent scoop by you and much appreciated by me and I am sure by others following this thread. I can now say that I called an editor at Pittsburgh Post Gazette several days ago about what was going on. He revealed nothing but said they were on top of the story. In this case someone else got story out first. Great work by you and thanks for the link! Kudos!

Permalink Reply by Frank Nesmith on June 28, 2013 at 8:24pm

That doesn't sound good.

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