WOOD COUNTY'S MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR CRACKER PLANT COULD BE ON HOLD

(02/12/2015)
Cracker Company 'Rethinking' Plans, Appalachian Gas Market By Caitlin Cook, Staff Writer for the Charleston Gazette

An official with the Brazil-based company that proposed a petrochemical complex in Wood County more than a year ago said Wednesday that he's worried about the natural gas market and what that might mean for the proposed plant.

"This is a period of really deep rethinking," David Peebles, a vice president with Odebrecht, told a crowd gathered Wednesday at the Charleston Town Center Marriott for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia's winter meeting.

The company closed last year on its approximately $11 million property that would house an ethane cracker plant, three polyethylene plants and associated infrastructure for water treatment and co-generation.

The company is continuing to develop the project known as Project ASCENT — short for Appalachia Shale Cracker Enterprise — but is reconsidering how it plans to move forward, Peebles said.

Natural gas prices continue to drop as production in the United States grows, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Prices have dropped to their lowest levels since September 2012, after a brief increase in November 2014....

READ REST OF STORY Cracker company 'rethinking' plans, Appalachian gas market By Caitlin Cook, Staff Writer for the Charleston Gazette