NOVA Chemicals begins Bakken Shale ethane use

NOVA Chemicals announced Friday that the first barrels of ethane supplied from natural gas associated with oil production from Bakken Shale are being utilized at its Joffre complex in Canada's Alberta province.

 

The ethane was produced at Hess Corp.'s plant in Tioga, North Dakota, and transported across the border into Alberta via the Vantage Pipeline. The Vantage Pipeline connects to the Alberta Ethane Gathering System (AEGS) in Empress, Alberta, for the final journey to Joffre.

NOVA Chemicals is the contract operator of both AEGS and the Vantage Pipeline.

 

The Vantage Pipeline has an initial design capacity of 40,000 bpd but is expandable to greater than 60,000 bpd, a volume that reflects more than 20% of Alberta’s existing installed ethylene production capacity. 

Ethane extracted from associated gas produced from Bakken Shale is expected to be a growing and stable feedstock supply source for the Alberta petrochemical industry.

 

“The introduction of Bakken Shale-based ethane into the feedstock diet at Joffre marks an important milestone in the diversification of our ethane sources for the region and our NOVA 2020 strategy to capitalize on North American demand,” said Todd Karran, acting CEO of NOVA Chemicals. 

“The new supply sources we recently began to use, together with those currently in development, should enable us to run our existing polyethylene plants at full capacity, as well as support our PE1 Expansion project in Joffre and position us well for potential further growth," he added.