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The US has experienced a renaissance in petrochemicals due to the abundance of ethane from shale gas. As a result of the increasing NGL production from various shale plays, there have been a total of 17 announced greenfield steam crackers in the US. Since much of the NGL production boom has come from the Northeast US, we wanted to take a look at ethane cracker projects in that area and assess their progress. Ethane supply from the Marcellus and Utica Shale has grown strongly in the last few years but regional demand and pipeline takeaway capacity is still limited. US ethane supply from gas plants (before rejection) in the Marcellus and Utica has grown from 5,000 b/d in 2013 to about 276,000 b/d in 2015, according to Platts Bentek. Ethane production is estimated to grow to 387,000 b/d in 2017 and 443,000 b/d in 2018, according to Platts Bentek Market Call: North American NGLs, 1Q 2016. Due to limited transportation infrastructure and unfavorable economics, a large volume of ethane is rejected in the natural gas stream. Ethane rejection averaged about 176,000 b/d in 2015 in the Marcellus/Utica. However, Platts Bentek estimates ethane rejection to decrease to 120,000 b/d in 2017 and to about 75,000 b/d in 2018, due to increased demand from exports and new ethane-only crackers coming online on the US Gulf Coast. With the declines in rejection and increase in production, ethane recovery in the Northeast will reach 443,000 b/d in 2018, up from 276,000 b/d in 2015. Subsequently, increased ethane volumes will need to flow on ATEX to the Gulf Coast, utilizing near full capacity on an expanded ATEX by 2018. Additional takeaway capacity and demand will be required to balance the oversupplied Northeast ethane market. In the US there have been a total of 17 announced greenfield projects. During the next five years, we will see several of these crackers start up, mostly along the US Gulf Coast. In the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, there are four crackers that can possibly be built within the next five years. These include the 275,000 mt/year cracker in Monroe County, Ohio; the 1 million mt/year PTTGC America in Belmont County, Ohio; the 1 million mt/year Ascent cracker in Parkersburg, West Virginia; and the 1.5 million mt/year Shell Appalachia cracker in Monaca, Pennsylvania. Will these projects come to fruition by 2021? View Full Article