PITTSBURGH—Polyethylene nurdles are huge.

Not their physical size, which ranges from 1 mm to 5 mm—about the size of a lentil—but in their impact on western Pennsylvania and on the bulk of the U.S. manufacturing segment that produces plastic products.

When Shell Chemicals’ complex in Monaca, Pa., becomes operational sometime in the early 2020s, the massive petrochemical project 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh will be producing billions of them. How big is this project?

  • The cost has been estimated at more than $10 billion;
  • The 2,000-metric tonne quench tower, used to purify ethane before it is further processed, is almost 300 feet tall;
  • The purge bins, which use heat to separate ethylene from inert compounds, are 380 feet tall; and
  • About 7,500 workers are required to assemble the complex.

Maneuvering the largest structures into place required more than a year’s use of Ultrecht, Netherlands-based Mammoet’s PTC 200-DS ring crane, the second-largest crane in the world. Dubbed the Mother of all Cranes (MOAC), the 695-ft monster is nearly as tall as iconic One Shell Plaza in downtown Houston.

“You could actually see it over the Pennsylvania hills,” said Michael Marr, business integration lead for Shell Chemical, at the recent Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conference. “There aren’t many things you could say that about.”

The plant’s location allows it to take advantage of the massive NGL production from the Marcellus and Utica shales but proximity to feedstock is not the only reason it is there.

“Within a 700-mile radius of Pittsburgh lie 70% of the consumers of our product,” Marr said. “We make the pellets that you can ship very densely and with great efficiency to faraway places. The products that are made out of polyethylene, be they bottles or be they something like a kayak, you want them produced closer to the customer.”

The complex includes an ethane cracker and polyethylene derivatives unit capable of producing 1.6 million tonnes of polyethylene per year. It will also result in about 600 permanent jobs at the site of a shuttered zinc smelter.

Operating in Appalachia translates into a competitive advantage for both Shell and its customers, Marr said. For customers, reliable supply and flexibility are important aspects that are not as easy to obtain from vendors on the Gulf Coast.

“Customers have told us that they’re really at the mercy of their suppliers with regard to shipping time, dates, etc.,” he said. “It’s a four-week time frame to get stuff up from the Gulf. We think having the ability to get truck deliveries as well as rail deliveries … to our customers will give a lot more flexibility.”

Marr did not back away from the major environmental issue surrounding polyethylene pellets, which is plastic waste in the world’s oceans. He noted that Shell was a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a $1.5 billion effort to address the problems of marine plastic pollution.

“Petrochemicals have a very important role to play in helping us build a more sustainable future, whether it’s the petrochemicals that are used to make solar panels or wind turbines, the insulation in our homes, the light-weighting of our vehicles, light-weighting of our packaging which help lead to less fuel being consumed and lower carbon emissions,” he said. “There are many different aspects to petrochemicals that are really vital to a more sustainable future.”

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