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Virus slows work on Shell’s Beaver County ethane cracker

MONACA, Pa. — Lew Villotti recalled meetings years ago about the petrochemical cracker plant that Royal Dutch Shell was planning to construct in the Beaver Valley.

Shell intended to build the facility along the Ohio River in Potter Township, on the site of a former zinc smelter. Years of operation at the Horsehead plant had created a toxic property that Shell had to remediate before following through on the project.

Villotti is the current president of the Beaver County Corp. for Economic Development, but he was working outside the county at the time. So when environmental concerns about erecting an ethane facility were discussed, local officials said something that stuck with him.

“I was told that this would be a rose compared with what was here before,” Villotti said. “You would look up the hill from the zinc plant and there was nothing but dead trees.”

That land in Potter Township is where the cracker plant is going up, a $6 billion to $10 billion project that was a focal point of a virtual webinar about developments — economic and otherwise — in Beaver County.

Villotti was one of four speakers Thursday morning in a Pittsburgh Business Times series that shifts the spotlight on various areas in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

The cracker, coincidentally, was in the news Thursday. Shell, according to the Business Times, temporarily stopped bringing back workers because of an increase in COVID-19 outbreaks. The publication reported that 17 workers have tested positive for the disease, likely because of community spread.

Shell halted work there March 18 because of the pandemic, but started to bring back workers a month later and has continued to do so in spurts. Construction, which began in November 2017, has obviously slowed.

The economic development head, Villotti, said he understands “everyone’s environmental concerns” about the Shell plant. But he added that “major companies try to be as environmentally effective as possible. Sure, there are environmental issues, but there is no more environmentally aware company (than Shell).”

Plastics will be the major byproduct of the petrochemical operation, which Von Fisher endorses.

“Plastics are something we need,” said Fisher, a vice president with Ambridge Regional Distribution and Manufacturing Center. “Everything around us is plastic. It needs to happen. The cracker plant is very important to this region.”

Fisher, a former Mon Valley resident, said two companies recently located near the cracker facility, which sits on 400 acres below Interstate 376 – the Beaver Valley Expressway. One, interestingly for this time, manufactures disinfectants and soaps.

He said, however, there is one key element missing near the plant: sufficient highway transportation.

Fisher and Villotti addressed a virtual audience along with Norm Mitry, president and chief executive officer of Heritage Valley Health System, and Bethany Williams, executive director of the Beaver County Regional Council of Governments.

Not long ago, it appeared that a second ethane cracker could be in the works for the Ohio River Valley. PTT Global Chemical has been planning to construct a plant in Dilles Bottom in Belmont County. Last week, however, there was an announcement that PTT partner Daelim Chemical was withdrawing from the $10 billion project, casting some doubt about the prospects.

PTT said it planned to stay the course, though.

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