MARCUS HOOK >> Just 18 people attended the community open house held by Sunoco Logistics on Saturday, where the company presented its plans for the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex.
Held at the Marcus Hook Community Center, next door to the former refinery complex, company officials explained the first phases of the Mariner East project bringing natural gas liquids from western Pennsylvania to the Delaware County facility as well as the intended plans for expansion in the future.
“We call it a second act,” Joseph McGinn, Senior Manager for Public Affairs for Sunoco Logistics, said. “Most facilities don’t have this opportunity for a second half.”
Formerly a place where people would spend their weekends on the beaches along the Delaware River, 82 acres in Marcus Hook were purchased by Joseph N. Pew in 1901 and a year later, the first shipment of crude oil arrived for processing at what had become the refinery.
In 1937, the world’s first commercial catalytic cracking plant was established here and within six years, the company had supplied the billionth gallon of aviation fuel for the Allies during World War II.
In contrast, the Japanese had difficulties supplying fuel and sometimes put turpentine in their fighter jets, according to McGinn.
By the time 2011 came, the refinery had ceased operations by the end of that year.
As the 800-acre facility transforms into a storage, processing and distribution point for natural gas liquids coming from the Marcellus Shale region, McGinn said less than 200,000 barrels of liquids a day were being process in 2012. By 2020, that number is projected to increase to 1.2 million barrels a day, he added.
How most of those liquids are transported to Marcus Hook is via pipeline, although trucks and rail are also used. Sunoco Logistics has two components to its pipe delivery infrastructure plan.
Mariner East One, a 350-mile line originating in Houston, Pa., is already carrying about 70,000 barrels of propane to the site daily with plans to move both propane and ethane in the next few months.
In the second phase, called Mariner East 2, Sunoco Logistics plans to build another 350-mile line through Ohio and West Virginia to carry propane, butane and ethane here. In conjunction with this line, the company is considering adding a second pipe to the plan to increase the flow of gas up to 675,000 barrels of natural gas liquids a day.
Jeffrey Shields, Communications Manager at Sunoco Logistics, said the company plans to enter into an Open Season very soon to gauge the contractual demand for these products.
“These materials are coming out of the ground right in our backyard essentially out in western Pennsylvania, and we’ve got a really unique opportunity to take this asset here in Marcus Hook … and now to be able to take that, all the know-how, all the assets that are here, all the people that work in this community and at that facility and all the capabilities that come with that, and to be able to transform into something that’s going to be able to take advantage of this energy renaissance,” Jonathan Hunt, director of operations for Sunoco Logistics, said. “That’s something we’re really, really excited about.”
These natural gas liquids are sent to companies locally, nationally and internationally where they are used as building blocks for many consumer products from anti-freeze, laundry detergent and shampoo to shirts, hoses and toys.
He said Sunoco Logistics is exploring constructing a propane cracker for propane dehydrogenation, transforming propane into propylene.
Some residents asked about the security of the facility in the movement of these materials.
McGinn explained Sunoco Logistics has an internal team overseeing the facility and also coordinates with local and regional emergency service personnel, such as the Delaware Bay & River Cooperative that gathers the Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey industrial complexes along the river to coordinate resources.
With regards to economic expenditures, he compared Sunoco Logistics’ $3 billion investment in the Mariner East projects to the $540 million spent to build the Comcast Tower in Philadelphia and $512 million spent on Lincoln Financial Field.
“The basic summary in terms of us spending $3 billion, the tax income and the economic development jolt that’s created, the amount of new jobs that this will bring is essentially bringing this facility back, giving us an Act Two,” McGinn said. “Frankly, that I think, we’re just in the beginning of.”
