News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc
Federal, state agencies probing Shell’s Falcon ethane pipeline after whistleblowers’ allegations
Early last year, Pennsylvania’s top environmental official tried to raise an alarm at the highest level of the federal agency responsible for pipeline safety.
“I write to you regarding a very serious public safety matter for Pennsylvania,” the letter from Patrick McDonnell, secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, began.
Shell Pennsylvania petchems project 70% complete, operational in 2022: spokesman
New York — Shell Chemical’s $6 billion petrochemical complex in Pennsylvania is now more than 70% complete and projected to be operational sometime in 2022, a company spokesman said March 12.”
On a daily basis workers are commissioning major pieces of equipment within our infrastructure units – a phased process that will continue until start-up” said the spokesman, Curtis Smith, in an email. “That includes connecting pipes and wiring that will eventually loop and extend for hundreds of miles along the site’s 386 acres,” he said.
Sixty-one new COVID-19 cases were reported at Beaver County’s cracker plant this week, bringing the total number since March to 335.
CHRISSY SUTTLES | BEAVER COUNTY TIMES: 12 Dec 2020
POTTER TWP. — Coronavirus cases continue to grow at Shell Chemicals’ ethane cracker plant site as COVID-19’s third wave hammers the region.
Sixty-one new virus cases were reported at Beaver County’s petrochemical complex this week, bringing the total number since March to 335. Since mid-November, total cases have tripled.
Shell’s Pennsylvania Ethane Cracker Completes 70% Construction
Zacks Equity Research
Royal Dutch Shell plc. (RDS.A – Free Report) said that its petrochemical complex of several billion dollars in Western Pennsylvania is about 70% complete and in the process to enter service in the early 2020s. The news was disclosed by Hilary Mercer, vice president of Shell Polymers via an online presentation at Shale Insight 2020 conference.
Currently under construction, the plant is in Beaver County, about 48 km northwest of Pittsburgh, and will be self-sustained with its natural gas power plant and water treatment facility. The plant’s costs are estimated to be $6-$10 billion, where ethane will be transformed into plastic feedstock. The facility is equipped to produce 1.5 million metric tons per year (“mmty”) of ethylene and 1.6 mmty of polyethylene, two important constituents of plastics.
Why The Oil Industry’s $400 Billion Bet On Plastics Could Backfire
Energy Sept 5, 2020Key takeaways:
The COVID-19 pandemic and accelerating green growth around the world have eviscerated many of the oil industry’s dogmas: that renewables would suffer from high costs, that governments would slow-walk environmental commitments, that investors would continue to reward long-term bets on oil with generous market values.
But one nugget of wisdom has survived everything the market has thrown at it, and now oil companies like ExxonMobil and Shell are wagering billions on it: that the world’s demand for plastics is still growing, with no end in sight.
The Guardian: ‘War on plastic’ could strand oil industry’s £300bn investment
Major oil firms plan to grow plastic supply to counter impact of shift against fossil fuels
Jillian Ambrose: Fri 4 Sep 2020 06.00 BST
The war on plastic waste could scupper the oil industry’s multi-billion dollar bet that the world will continue to need more fossil fuels to help make the petrochemicals used in plastics, according to a new report.
Major oil companies, including Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, plan to spend about $400bn (£300bn) to help grow the supply of virgin plastics by a quarter over the next five years, to compensate for the impact of electric vehicles and clean energy technologies on demand for fossil fuels.
Big Oil’s Petrochemical Bet Is A Risky One
By Tsvetana Paraskova – Aug 19, 2020, 5:00 PM CDT
Petrochemicals are expected to underpin global oil demand growth in the future as growth in transportation fuels demand is set to slow with the increased use of electric vehicles, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in March in its annual Oil 2020 report with projections until 2025. But are petrochemicals really profitable?
“Petrochemical feedstocks LPG/ethane and naphtha will drive around half of all oil products demand growth, helped by continued rising plastics demand and cheap natural gas liquids in North America,” the IEA said in March when the COVID-19 pandemic was already upending global oil demand growth projections for this year.
Shell: 17 new COVID cases at cracker plant, 14 active
By Chrissy Suttles: Posted Aug 4, 2020 at 5:28 PM
The site has seen 35 confirmed COVID-19 cases since March — 14 active and 21 recovered. More than 1,000 tests have been conducted at Shell’s on-site lab, with approximately 1 percent coming back positive.
POTTER TWP. — The number of COVID-19 cases at Beaver County’s ethane cracker plant has nearly doubled in less than three weeks.
Another 17 employees at the Shell Chemicals complex have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since mid-July, and 35 people have been infected since the pandemic hit Pennsylvania in March.
THE GUARDIAN: Big corporations accused of driving environmental and health inequalities in black and brown communities through toxic and climate-changing pollution are also funding powerful police groups in major US cities, according to a new investigation.
Some of America’s largest oil and gas companies, private utilities, and financial institutions that bankroll fossil fuels also back police foundations…
Shell is one of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world, and is currently building a huge ethane cracker plant near Pittsburgh, which advocates warn could turn Appalachia into the next so-called Cancer Alley – a corridor of Louisiana refineries, where Shell is also a major polluter. Shell is a “featured partner” of the New Orleans police foundation and a sponsor of the Houston police’s mounted patrol.
Despite a growing number of cases, Shell says it has no plans to halt construction on the multi-billion-dollar plant.
BEAVER COUNTY, Pa. (KDKA) — Five workers at the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County have recently tested positive for coronavirus.
On Thursday, Shell said 18 workers have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic.
Earlier this month, KDKA’s Paul Martino reported that Beaver County Commissioner Daniel Camp was concerned after a ninth employee at the plant tested positive.
In a recent town hall, the current project director of the Pennsylvania tax dodge, suggested the construction was 60% complete? WTF?
At least he is not to blame, he was saddled with the errors and over promises of AR, who landed a holding position as “VP HSE”, doing “TFA”, prior to a new position that seems also completely invented … and purposefulessness.
Can’t we just move helpless & hopeless leaders out of the organization?
Unless another senior leader is worried about his role in yet another profitless folly?
BY FRANK ESPOSITO: JAN 5, 2020
Shell Chemical says the development of a major plastics and petrochemicals complex under construction near Pittsburg remains “important” to its overall global effort, despite a report that questioned its viability.
In an email to Plastics News, Michael Marr, Shell business integration lead, responded by saying that Shell’s chemicals business at Monaca, PA., “enjoys strong fundamentals” and that the Pennsylvania project “is an important part of our global effort to build-out new business models that will allow Shell to participate and thrive in the energy transition.”
One closely-watched project already under construction in western Pennsylvania faces heightened risk as well. Royal Dutch Shell is building a gargantuan ethane cracker in the heart of the Appalachian shale gas region… “The complex is likely to be less profitable than expected and face an extended period of financial distress.”
A Perfect Storm For Petrochemicals
The oil majors have made huge bets on plastics and petrochemicals in recent years, but those investments look increasingly shaky following the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn.
Shell plastics plant Trump touted faces oversupply risks: Energy institute report
(Updated: )
WASHINGTON: A massive Pennsylvania plastics project that President Donald Trump touted during a visit last year faces risks of oversupply and a low price outlook for the materials, a report by an institute that examines energy issues said on Thursday.
The Pennsylvania Petrochemical Complex plant in Beaver County, owned by Shell, has been promoted by some as an economic savior in a region still suffering from the demise of steel industry in the 1980s.
28 April 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced oil consumption – and oil prices – down to a record low. Environmentalists are rejoicing, but unknown to many people, and largely unreported, oil companies have been gearing up to cover their losses by massively boosting plastic production – oil being the core component of most plastics we use in daily life.
The Covid-19 pandemic may prove to be a turning point for the oil industry. Already suffering from overproduction and decreasing oil prices, the oil markets suffered a major hit this year when the pandemic forced people worldwide into confinement.
Andy Sheehan: March 18, 2020 at 3:59 pm
MONACA, Pa. (KDKA) – Union officials say Shell is temporarily shutting down construction at the Beaver County cracker plant after workers raised concerns related to the potential spread of coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Beaver County Commissioners called on Shell to shut down construction at the multi-billion-dollar cracker plant. Workers had complained of crowded buses and unsanitary conditions.
Workers at the construction site have been reporting a lack of progress on a laundry list of concerns related to the potential spread of COVID-19.
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EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
: It's all in the ground Simon! https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/shell-exxon-look-to-profit-from-capturing-customers-carbon-emissions-11618824602
: ON HOW TO REVAMP NIGERIA’S UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM OIL & GAS SECTOR With recent reports that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved a whopping $1.5 billion to rehabilitate the epileptic Port Harcourt refinery, I consider it a national tragedy and a shame of a nation that Nigeria, despite its over fifty decades of oil and gas exploration and production activities, has been exporting its hugely produced crude oil and natural gas at commercial quantity, and then import ‘refined petroleum products’ at higher costs to satisfy domestic demands. The said move, according to the government, is to ensure that the obsolete Port-Harcourt refinery, which last benefitted from a Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM) work in 2000, comes back to life, while also supposedly contributing to the development of Nigeria’s oil sector. We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes https://ndpc-zik.org/publications/on-who-to-revamp-nigeria-upstream-and-downstream-oil-and-gas-sector COMPLETE COMMENTS
: "Under the Hammer", again!https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-oil/tunisia-faces-exodus-of-western-oil-giants-idUSKBN2BI1XF
: Serica finally kicks-off development on Columbus, years after BG 'kicked them in the teeth'. https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/serica-energy-kicks-off-development-drilling-at-north-sea-field/2-1-982427
: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/48093/Shell-to-develop-Phase-9B-of-WDDM-within-2-months
: I have mentioned before how the contaminated produced water from Shell's Western Delta Deep Marine gas fields, acquired during the takeover of BG Group, used to be tankered and dumped in the desert.Khaled Gad, Shell's Onshore and Offshore Asset Manager in Egypt, should be able to answer the question as to what now happens to the produced water from Shell's assets in Egypt.
: Selling off parts of the BG millstone. See: https://www.upstreamonline.com/lng/shell-completes-2-5bn-australian-lng-asset-sale/2-1-980042
: Further to Bogus Group's post, very little at BG Group was proven. The majority of their work was of low integrity and dissolved at the slightest scrutiny. This was to be expected with a 'do as I say, not do as I do' Line Management.
: https://trinidadexpress.com/business/local/shell-takes-biggest-hit/article_ca33aea4-73d5-11eb-8a6e-ff41b564d669.html It's surely been proven that BG proven reserves were not actually proven and that Shell did inherit a 'pig in the poke'. The statement “Our preference is to deal with these arrangements, not in a clandestine way but there is a deeper confidentiality to it. We have these arrangements all over the world. We need to ensure that we maintain a degree of confidentiality but what I will confirm is that hundreds of millions of US dollars converts to billions of TT dollars and we have confirmed that Trinidad will benefit to billions,”beggars belief.
: It is not clear why the once upon a time VP Developments, Brazil is now VP Subsurface Excellence, given that the Brazil Asset under her stewardship spent at least five years down a giant rabbit hole using a corrupt workflow that resulted in a significant overbooking of reserves.
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