Shell's Ethane Cracker In Pennsylvania -- RBN Energy -- January 15, 2021

Wow! What a great coincidence: yesterday the "big" Bakken story was the announcement that an ethane power plant was being considered for a site west of Williston. Someone mentioned that Pennsylvania ethane complex, but not much more was said. 

Now today, an RBN Energy blog on the ethane steam cracker in Pennsylvania.

RBN Energy: Shell's new ethane-consuming steam cracker in the home stretch.

After several years of development, Shell’s $6 billion Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex — the first of its kind in the Marcellus/Utica shale play — is really taking shape about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The facility, which will consist of a 3.3-billion-lb/year ethylene plant and three polyethylene units, is in its final stages of construction, as is a pipeline that will supply regionally sourced ethane to the steam cracker. When the Falcon Pipeline and the PPC comes online, possibly as soon as 2022, they will provide a new and important outlet for the vast amounts of ethane that is now either “rejected” into natural gas for its Btu value or piped to Canada, the Gulf Coast, or the Marcus Hook export terminal near Philadelphia. Today, we discuss progress on the Marcellus/Utica’s first world-class petrochemical complex and what it will mean for the play’s NGL market.