Cal Dooley, President, American Chemical Council, keynote speaker
The WV Governor’s Energy Summit was held Tuesday, December 6th at the Stonewall Jackson Resort in central West Virginia. The theme this year was “Energy Powering Economic Development”. The primary topic was the possibility of an ethane cracker chemical plant being located in West Virginia.
The keynote speaker was Cal Dooley, President of the American Chemical Council. He said that currently WV is the 23rd largest chemical producing state in the US, but a $3.2 billion investment in an ethylene production complex (an ethane cracker) would generate some $4.8 billion in additional chemical industry output, bringing the State’s industry revenues to over $13 billion, making WV the 13th largest chemical producing state. This could mean 8,000 jobs in what he called the “investment phase” and then 12,000 jobs in the “operation phase”.
Secretary of Commerce Keith Burdette said that there are at least two chemical companies, including Shell Chemical, seriously considering placing an ethane cracker plant in West Virginia. Our State is prepared to make a “world class” proposal to a mainstream company willing to site an ethane cracker here; and, that this administration (Governor Tomblin) will be the “last man standing” with such a proposal. He said that the siting of such a plant here would just be the first step in a sequence of events including processing and the production of finished goods; that some subsequent steps could be more valuable than the first.
Rob Alsop, Chief of Staff for Governor Tomblin, said that bringing an ethane cracker plant to West Virginia is the Governor’s number one priority. The Governor and Legislature already have in place a special committee on the siting of such a chemical plant. He expects that one or more chemical companies will announce their plans early in the new year, but that it could be a five to six year schedule to finalize plans, design and build such a plant. In the meantime, West Virginia has had under study the establishment of ethane storage capacity to prevent all the produced ethane from going out of state. For example, storage costs might be 3 cents per gallon while pipeline transportation costs to Texas or Canada would be of the order of 15 cents per gallon.
The Chief of Staff, Mr. Alsop, said that the administration has no plans to propose an increase in the severance taxes on natural gas. He also said that the Governor’s office is preparing a revision to the amendments for SB-424, the Legislative bill to regulate Marcellus shale drilling and fracking, to be submitted to the Legislature for the upcoming Special Session on December 12th. Governor Tomblin said last week that he wants to change the application fee(s), remove the specifications on pipe casing , and remove the job tracking requirements, among other possible changes.
Four previous such Summits have been held at the Stonewall Jackson Resort, the proceedings of which are posted here for the years 2007 thru 2010.
Duane Nichols, December 6, 2011.
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