CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin says he currently has no reason to doubt that Wood County will one day be home to a large petrochemical complex that will include an ethane cracker.
“I feel very confident that the plant will go forward,” Gov. Tomblin said on Thursday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
His comments come a day after David Peebles, an Odebrecht vice president, told those attending the West Virginia Independent Oil and Gas Association’s winter meeting in Charleston a “rethinking” was taking place within the Brazilian company about the ASCENT project, Appalachian Shale Cracker Enterprise.
“The only thing that’s really changed is the fact that the price of crude oil has gone from over $100 barrel to half that price right now and, obviously, that is another source of fuel that can be used to make basically the same product,” Tomblin said.
Keith Burdette, state Commerce Secretary, said it’s a “rethink” for the engineering for the site dealing with the potential fuel supply, not the project itself. “They’re reevaluating what their mix is going to be,” said Burdette who talked with Odebrecht officials on Wednesday evening.
“Nothing has changed,” Burdette said. “We’re moving forward. We’re just trying to look at the supply mix to see how it works and that’s forcing us to kind of rethink things.”
Before the end of this year, Burdette said Odebrecht will make a final decision on the plant.
“After they engineer the plant, they’re going to look at everything. They’re going to cost it out and make their final decision,” he said. “We remain optimistic and have always been optimistic.”
Odebrecht first announced it was exploring the possibility of developing the petrochemical complex in Washington, W.Va. in 2013. As proposed, it would include an ethane cracker, three polyethylene plants and associated infrastructure for water treatment and energy co-generation.
Since then, “They have made a huge investment in the purchase of the site in Wood County. They continue to go forward with they’re permitting processes which takes sometimes months and sometimes a couple of years to get through all those, so all those activities are continuing to go on,” Gov. Tomblin said.
Additionally, the company has identified the anchors for the plant’s ethane supply and hired a technology provider for one or more of the polyethylene plants planned for the site.
Tomblin and Burdette visited Brazil last November to meet with Odebrecht officials.