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. read more

By Andy Sheehan March 16, 2020 at 5:38 pm

BEAVER COUNTY (KDKA) — Over the last few days, KDKA has received questions about the Shell Cracker plant that is under construction in Beaver County.

The coronavirus has not slowed construction at the multibillion-dollar cracker plant as thousands of workers continue to speed the project towards completion.

But those same workers say the site is riddled with unsanitary conditions and standard social distancing protocols are being ignored.

In more than a dozen emails to KDKA, workers raised concerns about being transported to the site on crowded buses and called daily to mandatory mass meetings. read more

Benjamin Storrow, E&E News reporter Climatewire: Tuesday, January 21, 2020

A recent study identified 88 petrochemical projects along the Gulf Coast that are either in the planning stage or under construction. If all are completed, their combined emissions output could reach 150.8 million metric tons, the equivalent of 38 coal plants.

The same oil and gas boom that helped clean up the power sector has also made it cheaper to turn natural gas into plastics, fertilizer and other products. The process is emissions-intensive. Large quantities of natural gas liquids like ethane and propane are fed into enormous furnaces and heated to extremely high temperatures, creating smaller hydrocarbon molecules that can be separated and turned into different plastic products. read more

Shell: New steel tariffs would have “little-to-no” impact on Beaver County cracker plant

By Chrissy Suttles: 3 Dec 2019

Shell Chemicals representatives say President Donald Trump’s plans to restore tariffs on some steel imports would have minimal impact on final construction of Beaver County’s ethane cracker plant.

POTTER TWP. — President Donald Trump plans to restore tariffs on steel imports from Brazil and Argentina, a move Shell Chemicals representatives said would have little impact on final construction of Beaver County’s ethane cracker plant.

“Generally, all of our major steel deliveries have been made to the site, so there would be no impact or minimal impact,” said Michael Marr, Shell Chemicals’ business integration lead. “The impact would only be financial, and would not change the overall finances of the project.” read more

Perhaps Shell will be able to recycle the microplastic toxic waste from its Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex when it gets underway?

HOUSTON, Nov. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Today Shell announced it has successfully made high-end chemicals using a liquid feedstock made from plastic waste. The technique, known as pyrolysis, is considered a breakthrough for hard-to-recycle plastics and advances Shell’s ambition to use one million tonnes of plastic waste a year in its global chemicals plants by 2025.

“This makes sense for the environment and our business,” said Thomas Casparie, Executive Vice President of Shell’s global chemicals business.  “We want to take waste plastics that are tough to recycle by traditional methods and turn them back into chemicals – creating a circle. These chemicals will meet our customers’ growing demands for high quality and sustainable products.” read more

The Shell plant will erase 30 years’ worth of air quality improvements. It will result in higher rates of respiratory disease, heart disease, asthma, lost productivity, cancer, early deaths and adverse birth outcomes…

BY MATTHEW MEHALIK, PH.D.

As people concerned about the future of the Ohio River Valley, we wish to tell President Donald Trump, who is in Pittsburgh today bowing to petrochemical interests, that petrochemical development is the wrong path for our community. Our region has battled economic disinvestment following generations of heavy industrial development with a subsequent burden of cleaning up. One of the lessons we have learned is that life and health are precious.

The Shell plant will erase 30 years’ worth of air quality improvements. It will result in higher rates of respiratory disease, heart disease, asthma, lost productivity, cancer, early deaths and adverse birth outcomes in a community with existing poor health statistics. This industry will sacrifice our health and economy in order to overproduce plastics and put our water supply at risk. read more

Summary

*While Chevron, Exxon, Occidental and other oil majors are eagerly ramping up shale acquisitions and production, Shell has been more reserved in this regard.

*Shale resources may help companies improve on upstream production volumes and reserves, but profitability is questionable, leading to potentially net negative trade-off for investors.

*The ethane plant in Pennsylvania is an example of Shell wisely making use of lower natural gas prices, rather than being on the upstream side, losing money.

Much has been made lately of the deep dive into shale that the likes of oil majors such as Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and Exxon (NYSE:XOM) decided to take in the past few years. A fight over Anadarko (NYSE:APC) between Chevron and Occidental (NYSE:OXY) was perhaps the most emblematic symbol of this industry-changing trend. Analysts and investors quickly jumped to the conclusion that it is imperative for all oil majors to jump in and compete with each other on acquiring and developing shale assets. Exxon and Chevron are currently planning to increase shale production to 1 mb/d each. Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) has been more timid in this regard, and given the profitability profile of the overall shale industry, I am fully satisfied with its position in this regard. Shell’s downstream investments, such as the Pennsylvania ethane plant, meant to take advantage of low shale prices, seems to make far more sense than rushing to produce the low-priced natural gas. Nor does it seem all that wise to rush to produce shale oil, which requires extremely high capital expenses to produce. Some investors may believe that it is more important to maintain reserves and production by diving into the shale patch. I personally think that it is not worth diluting Shell’s overall profitability profile by producing shale oil and gas for the sake of maintaining the company’s overall production numbers. read more

A memo sent to union leaders by Shell before an appearance by Donald Trump — displayed by a recipient via Twitter — warns against protests and threatens pay reduction. read more

Before plastic is made into anything else, it is made into pellets. And those pellets are leaking everywhere. When completed, the new facility will pump out 1.8 million tons (1.6 million metric tons) of plastic each year.  The vast majority of that plastic, like the vast majority of all plastic made up to now, will likely not be recycled. And it will exist virtually forever, crumbling into microplastics that show up most everywhere scientists look for them. Those small spheres, sometimes known as “nurdles,” are a massive source of plastic pollution, escaping into the environment before they have a chance to be molded into a useful shape. With roughly 22,000 nurdles per pound of plastic, the Shell plant intends to produce the rough equivalent of 80 trillion nurdles per year. As the Royal Dutch Shell plant rises in Pennsylvania, environmental groups and scientists are worried about the lack of regulation to specifically address plastic pellet pollution. (Shell did not return a request for comment.) 

By Zoë Schlanger: 19 Aug 2019

Some 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a township adjacent to a state forest, oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell is building a sprawling new plant to support what it sees as the future of its business: making millions of tons of new, virgin plastic.

US president Trump visited the facility last week, highlighting the 5,000 construction jobs it has created. The plant is just one of more than 300 new plastic facilities proposed or permitted for the US in the near future. Shell, along with other major oil and gas companies like Exxon, sees plastic as one avenue for growth as natural gas prices plummet—and, longer-term, as a way to weather the world’s slow rejection of fossil fuels as an energy source. read more

Shell Petrochemical Plant under construction in Beaver County Pa., Crowded with Cranes. Aug 2019

Operating Heavy machine is no joke. If anything goes wrong, it can claim lives. 

So, as a crane operator, you should make sure the whole operations go smoothly. Following, we are giving you a few safety tips to help you out!

What You Need to Know

Tower and mobile cranes are useful for different construction scenarios. But they do present a few hazards like:

Collapse: Crane collapse are unfortunate events that may lead to severe (even fatal) injuries to both workers and bystanders.

Load Falling or Line Snapping: As tower cranes are high, there is a possibility that high winds or tight spaces can make the load fall. This is a great danger for everyone on the ground level. read more

“Jeering, protesting or shouting was not tolerated, a leaked memo said. Staying away was allowed, but then the overtime allowance would be reduced.”

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch FT, Financieele Dagblad.

With the call, the contractors wanted to improve the fragile relationship between the unions and President Donald Trump. Photo: Justin Merriman / Bloomberg

Construction workers at Shell factory were asked to treat Trump kindly

Van onze redacteur: 19 August 2019

To the great satisfaction of the contractors, the thousands of construction workers from a Shell plant under construction northwest of Pittsburgh received President Donald Trump on Tuesday with loud applause.

The construction companies had asked their employees to treat the president in a friendly manner in an attempt to improve the fragile relationship between the White House and the trade unions. Jeering, protesting or shouting was not tolerated, a leaked memo said. Staying away was allowed, but then the overtime allowance would be reduced. read more

Workers at a Royal Dutch Shell plant in Monaca, Pa., were forced to choose Tuesday between attending a speech by President Trump or forgoing overtime pay that their co-workers would earn.

Attendance was optional, but contract workers who chose not to stand in the crowd would not qualify for time-and-a-half pay when they arrived at work Friday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Several companies with thousands of unionized workers have contracts with Shell, one the world’s largest oil and gas companies. read more

“This is just what Shell wanted to do, and we went along with it”

Washington (CNN)Workers at the Pennsylvania petrochemical plant where President Donald Trump spoke Tuesday were told that if they didn’t attend the event, they either had to use paid time off or receive no pay for the day.

At least some of the workers who attended the speech were instructed not to protest the President, who told the crowd of workers at the Royal Dutch Shell plant he would be imploring their union leaders to support his reelection. read more

SHELL TO BE A BIG PLAYER IN MICROPLASTICS

By John Donovan

The timing of President Trump’s delayed visit to Shell’s new Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex, which will produce more than a million tons of plastic in the form of tiny pellets, turned out to be unfortunate.

It happened to coincide with the release of scientific research and evidence about the unknown consequences of airborne microplastics on the heath of “birds, fish, whales and people”.

Please read the extracts below from various news organisations covering the Trump visit, which inevitably was surrounded by controversy and scandal. read more

Guest Opinion: Jobs and health hazards: Don’t let Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ come to Pennsylvania

By Julieta Biegner, Global Witness: 13 August 2019

Today, President Trump is set to visit a Shell petrochemical plant where state subsidies cost $2.75 million per permanent job created.

The White House has made clear that it expects Pennsylvania to play a key role in its U.S. energy dominance agenda, citing the cusp of an “Appalachian Petrochemical Renaissance.” So it comes as no shock that Trump will visit a Beaver County petrochemical plant today.

The apparent purpose of the trip is to tout domestic manufacturing and energy production. read more

Ben Marlow, executive business editor: 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 • 8:39PM

Like a pair of mysterious soothsayers, Maarten Wetselaar and John Abbott are peering into the future. The world they see is almost unrecognisable from the one we inhabit today, and yet it is only just around the corner. In the west, the petrol car has become obsolete. Lorries are powered by liquid natural gas. Freight liners criss-cross the oceans fuelled by hydrogen. Solar and wind provide the energy to our homes. And the petrol station has been reimagined as an unlikely retail hotspot where people routinely gather to do their food shopping, pick up parcels, and sip artisan coffee. A convoy of vehicles are being rebooted at one of many charging points on the forecourt. FULL ARTICLE read more