MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy the former Horsehead Holdings Corp. zinc smelter site in Beaver County as it continues to mull a decision on building a multibillion-dollar ethane cracker there, as per TribLIVE.
Shell said its decision to exercise a purchase option agreement that it extended for more than two years does not signal a final plan to move ahead with the project along the Ohio River in Center and Potter. It is awaiting environmental permits from the state and evaluating the economics of the plant, which would convert ethane from natural gas drilling into chemicals used to make plastic.
"We will make that decision when our full project evaluation is complete," spokeswoman Kimberly Windon said, noting the company is doing some work on the land and nearby roads. "The land purchase is a necessary step for Shell to advance the permitting process and allows us to proceed with some preliminary site development work."
Neither Shell nor Horsehead disclosed the purchase price and they did not set a closing date on the deal.
As MRC reported earlier, last August, Shell started a two-month bidding period to solicit ethane commitments from Marcellus Shale operators for its proposed Beaver County cracker. Ethane, a natural gas liquid found in shale gas in western Pennsylvania, can be turned into ethylene. If Shell Chemical decides to build the first world-scale cracker in the Marcellus region, some of its ethane would come from Shell's own oil and gas production in the region.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC