GAIL Limited, India’s primary natural gas supplier, is planning to build a 3.3 billion lb/year cracker in central India. The company disclosed its plans in a June 10 regulatory filing after having signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in March with the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Shell Energy India (SEI) to explore imports of U.S. ethane and the development of associated infrastructure.
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- Analyst Insight
GAIL (India) Signs MoU To Explore Import Of U.S. Ethane; Global VLEC New Orderbook Continues To Expand
GAIL said ethane has emerged as a preferred petrochemical feedstock in India and the development of its import facilities have gained considerable traction. "Definite plans are being formulated to import ethane for domestic petrochemical plant requirements." said Rajeev Kumar Singhal, Director (Business Development), GAIL.
- Blog
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - On-Purpose Propylene Doesn't Come Easy
Fast-rising NGL supplies during the early years of the Shale Era fueled excitement about the potential for new petrochemical plants in the U.S., especially ethane-only crackers to make ethylene and other byproducts, along with propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plants to make propylene. While 11 new ethane-fed crackers have come online in the U.S. since the mid-2010s and the world’s largest — Chevron Phillips Chemical and QatarEnergy’s 4.8-billion-lb/year facility — is under construction in Texas, only three of the many PDH projects proposed over the same period were actually built. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at why the initial rush of new PDH project announcements resulted in so few new U.S. plants.
- Blog
Building the Perfect Beast - Shell's New Ethane-Consuming Steam Cracker in the Home Stretch
After several years of development, Shell’s $6 billion Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex — the first of its kind in the Marcellus/Utica shale play — is really taking shape about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The facility, which will consist of a 3.3-billion-lb/year ethylene plant and three polyethylene units, is in its final stages of construction, as is a pipeline that will supply regionally sourced ethane to the steam cracker. When the Falcon Pipeline and the PPC comes online, possibly as soon as 2022, they will provide a new and important outlet for the vast amounts of ethane that is now either “rejected” into natural gas for its Btu value or piped to Canada, the Gulf Coast, or the Marcus Hook export terminal near Philadelphia. Today, we discuss progress on the Marcellus/Utica’s first world-class petrochemical complex and what it will mean for the play’s NGL market.
