Wolf tax proposal puts Beaver County Shell plant at risk

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | Feb. 25, 2015 | David Conti

[RS_Rider]

Royal Dutch Shell warned Gov. Tom Wolf that policies which hurt gas production could affect the company's decision on whether to build a multibillion-dollar plant in Beaver County to turn ethane into plastics, the head of a gas industry group said Wednesday.

“I sat in a meeting with Gov. Wolf in August, where leadership from Shell looked the now-governor directly in the eye and said, ‘If you jeopardize the ethane supply, we likely don't invest here,' ” Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Spigelmyer told Tribune-Review editors and reporters. “That's a big deal. We need to make sure we have opportunities to invest and grow.”

The head of the North Fayette-based advocacy group and industry lobbyist said he has no inside knowledge on whether Shell will build the so-called ethane cracker.

Spigelmyer said Wolf's proposal to collect 5 percent of the money producers get from wells and 4.7 cents for every thousand cubic feet coming from wells threatens investments and could slow production of gas and related liquids, such as ethane.

Shell said it determined in April it would have enough ethane to operate the plant if it builds, with 10 contracts lasting up to 20 years. The company said the plant could employ 400 people and outside projections put the number of related jobs in the thousands.

“At no time has Shell linked the potential future of the proposed petrochemical facility with Gov. Wolf's proposed natural gas severance tax,” company spokeswoman Kimberly Windon said in an email. “Shell has always maintained that the ethane supply for the proposed facility would come from the region.”

[Nowhere Man]

Well they can come here to Ohio.

[WayneS]

What’s another pipeline among friends?

[thackney]

Cost.

Ohio and West Virginia already have sites picked out. Shell had already said prior it was between those three.

[WayneS]

I WAS joking.

[dalereed]

“Exactly why the Founding Fathers said that only property owners could vote”

Finish it up, it also included male, white.

My mother always contended that giving women the right to vote was the stupidest thing they ever did!

[Tucker39]

I have no problem with any race being a voter, as long as they have skin in the game. The only thing I’d say regarding women’s suffrage is that originally God put men in charge.

There once was a great motivational speaker in the Harrisburg area, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. He often said that the problem with the Country was that “papa won’t pop.” Meaning that men had become pantywaists, no longer taking real leadership in the home, so the family slowly deteriorated, and as goes the family, so goes the Country. The word “husband” comes from “house band”. He holds everything together....IF he’s truly doing his job. FWIW.

[Safetgiver]

Yeah, that, too. Now watch what Woof does by shutting down the drilling.

[Tamzee]

Well, people who voted against Corbett for the gas tax are going to see massively more taxes and unemployment and state debt because they let a union-owned socialist into the governor’s seat. Those conservatives who voted to get rid of Corbett teamed up arm-in-arm with the corrupt unions and radical environmentalists....