PTTGC America expects fallout from the coronavirus pandemic to further delay its final investment decision to launch major construction on a petrochemical complex in southeast Ohio, the company said in an email Wednesday.
"We do believe FID will be impacted by the health crisis, but at this point it is difficult to predict how," the company said on Wednesday. "The companies are doing all they can to reach FID as quickly as possible, but as you know, there are things out of their control."
PTTGC America and its partner, Daelim Chemical USA, "would begin construction pretty much immediately after FID," the company said.
PTTGC, the US arm of Thailand's PTT Global Chemical, has repeatedly delayed FID for the project, with the latest timeline targeting the first half of 2020. The companies received a necessary permit in December 2018 from Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency, and the FID delays allowed more time to evaluate engineering designs, and site preparation work began in mid-2019.
The companies said in February that preparation work was completed, and activity would be "significantly reduced" for the next two to three months as financing and supply agreements were finalized.
The project includes a 1.5 million mt/year ethane cracker and four derivative polyethylene plants with a combined capacity of 1.6 million mt/year in Shadyside, Ohio.
Project in 'second wave' of new US petrochemical infrastructure
The new complex would be part of a second wave of new petrochemical projects fueled by cheap feedstocks and the second in the US Northeast, home to the Marcellus and Utica natural gas shale plays. The first wave involved eight crackers and 13 PE plants, most of which have come online.
However, the pandemic has prompted some projects, including Shell's $6 billion complex in southwest Pennsylvania, to suspend construction work. Such projects bring hundreds of contractors to sites, and social distancing measures deemed necessary to combat the spread of the pandemic would be difficult to maintain during such work.
Shell in March said the company temporarily suspended work at the complex, and would consider a phased construction ramp-up after imposing additional mitigation measures aligned with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Other projects that have stopped or slowed work include FG LA's "Sunshine Project" involving two new 1.2 million mt/year crackers and four new PE plants with a combined 1.6 million mt/year capacity; LyondellBasell's new $2.4 billion propylene oxide/tertiary butyl alcohol plant east of Houston; and NOVA Chemicals' new 454,000 mt/year PE facility and cracker expansion in Ontario.
