Aither Chemicals and Pittsburgh Renewable Manufacturing Gateway (RMG) of Pennsylvania, US, have signed a letter of engagement (LOE) to fund and construct a petrochemical plant on Marcellus shale.
The $750m plant will feature Aither's ethane catalytic cracker technology which uses a patent-pending catalytic cracking method instead of steam cracking to produce ethylene before transforming the ethylene to higher-value chemicals. The technology is expected to minimise operating costs and consume 80% less energy while producing 60% less CO2.
The project, which is anticipated to create 2,000 construction jobs, 200 permanent direct production jobs and thousands of indirect jobs in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and Northern West Virginia, US, is expected to generate $463m in annual sales by 2016.
RMG CEO Enzo Zoratto said that Aither's technology is a natural fit to the region. "It cost-effectively uses the ethane-rich natural gas from our vast Marcellus gas deposit to produce highly sought-after byproducts, while creating high-value employment in the region," he said.
Aither Chemicals CEO Leonard Dolhert said that together, RMG and Aither would finance and build one of the largest manufacturing plants to be built in the region for the past few decades.
The Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organisation, RMG, advises companies with regard to project structuring, capital markets strategies and introductions, business planning, commercialisation, marketing, sales and strategic growth.
Aither Chemicals, which is a spinout of Mid-Atlantic Technology Research and Innovation Center, (MATRIC), was formed in 2010 with a mission to convert ethane to high-value chemicals, employing new and present technologies.
