Cleveland Brothers Continues Heavy Involvement in Construction of Ethane Cracker Plant in Beaver County
For the past year and a half, Cleveland Brothers has been heavily involved in supporting the contractors developing land near Monaca, PA for a multi-billion dollar petrochemical facility being constructed by energy giant Royal Dutch Shell.
This facility will be the first U.S. “ethane cracker” plant to be built outside of the Gulf Coast region in more than 20 years. Among the factors in Shell’s choice of Monaca, PA for a potential plant site is an abundance of nearby ethane, a liquid produced along with natural gas from the thousands of nearby Marcellus and Utica Shale wells. The purpose of this kind of facility is to take that ethane and “crack” it, converting it to ethylene and polyethylene, which are the building blocks for many common plastic products.
Although Shell has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “Early Works” projects to prepare the 400-acre site for construction, the final decision on whether or not to construct the facility was long-delayed due to a variety of factors. However, on June 7, 2016, Shell ended years of speculation regarding the status of the project, by officially announcing their intent to build the plant, the scope of which has been compared to building 25 pro sports stadiums.
As part of the Early Works phase of the project, a former zinc smelting facility located on the property was demolished, and associated environmental clean-up projects were completed. Next, about 8 million cubic yards of dirt and rock had to be moved on the site. Complicating this effort was that much of the material had to be moved across a busy section of State Route 18. To facilitate the haul, and to minimize traffic disruption, a bridge was constructed over Route 18 that could accommodate two (2) fully loaded Caterpillar 777 off-highway trucks (weighing in excess of 100 tons each), and which will later serve as an access point into the massive facility. Barge docking facilities and rail lines are currently being built, as well as a massive network of underground infrastructure. Lastly, a large section of Route 18 itself will be moved and traffic will be shifted to the new section upon completion.
The importance of this project to Cleveland Brothers has been significant. Several of our valued customers are currently working on the site, including Trumbull Corporation, Mascaro Construction, Lindy Paving, and others. In partnership with our customers, Cleveland Brothers has been a part of this project since the beginning, and can already attribute at least 12 machine sales directly to the Early Works phase of this project, as well as millions of dollars in machine and technology rentals, parts sales, and service work. Shell is currently estimating that 10,000 jobs will be created at peak construction of the plant. Dozens of local contractors will be employed as part of the building process, which Cleveland Brothers will be ready and able to support from all aspects of our business – construction equipment, power generation, technology, parts and service.