From the Pittsburgh Business Times
The word of the day in Beaver County is “safety.”
At least that seems to be the case according to Shell Chemicals Project Director Anca Rusu, speaking publicly about the cracker plant, which Royal Dutch Shell is building in Beaver County, at the Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction Conference at Station Square.
“Unless we are safe on our sites, we cannot perform,” Rusu said.
The presentation also offered a quick video showing a 3-D rendering of the completed plant, showing a full trainyard to service the new plant — set to produce billions of pounds of ethylene from Pennsylvania natural gas — and ship it to market.
Before the video, Rusu said most of the “utilities” for the site had been installed and that Shell’s contractors “basically moved two hills.” However, Rusa added the site still needed “more than a mile” of highway, railroad tracks, and electrical lines to complete the utility installation.
Representatives for the two main contractors, Joseph B. Fay Co. and Trumbull Corp., sat to Rusa’s right for the panel. They spoke highly of what they saw as Shell’s heavy corporate focus on safety.
Joseph Franceschini, vice president of safety at Trumbull, said his company’s “safety efforts, although very good in our world, would need to be stepped up to work in [Shell’s] world.” Franceschini added Trumbull made this choice knowing that it had to “meet the expectations of the biggest player in our market.”
The plant will employ roughy 6,000 workers during construction peak and 600 full-time employees once open. All told, it should add $4 billion in economic impact from the plant and ripple effects.
“We will change forever Pittsburgh and the landscape,” Rusu said.
