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Ashtabula County Site of Two Big Industrial Projects
ASHTABULA, Ohio -- Two big economic development projects, one on the lakeshore side of Lake Road just east of Route 11 and another across the road, separately took big steps forward Monday -- the potential for each based on industrial and natural resources.
In the case of First Energy’s dormant “Plant C” coal-fired electricity plant, the resource is Lake Erie and the idled plant’s ability to pump water to Ashtabula County’s industrial district. In the case of Pinto Energy LLC, the resource is natural gas that would fuel a proposed gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant where dry gas produced from the Utica and Marcellus shale plays would be converted into solvents, lubricants, waxes and transportation fuels.
Pinto announced Monday that it plans to build a $200 million, 2,800 barrel per day gas-to-liquids plant on an 80-acre site once part of Union Carbide’s complex on the south side of Lake Road. About the same time, ground was broken on the other side of Lake Road for a $3.1 million update to the water-pumping infrastructure housed in the former electricity plant, now owned by the Ashtabula County Port Authority.
Pinto is seeking government incentives to help finance its $200 million project. A combination of public and private financing will pay for the Plant C project, noted U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who headlined Monday’s groundbreaking.
The Ashtabula County Port Authority has obtained a permit to pump up to 200 million gallons of water a day from Lake Erie, but the old electricity plant’s current capacity is 20 million. To finance the upgrade of its infrastructure, Brown helped secure a $1.55 million U.S. Economic Development Agency grant, matched with a $1.55 million Ohio Water Development Authority loan that will be repaid by two nearby manufacturers that use the water, Praxair Industrial Gases and Christal Co., which operates two plants that produce titanium dioxide.
Upgrading Plant C’s pumping system, once used in coal-fired plant’s cooling process, would preserve 1,000 manufacturing jobs and ensure new industries such as Pinto have sufficient water resources to create new jobs. “The redevelopment of Plant C is significant to the health of Ashtabula County’s economy,” Brown said.
Pinto Energy, a Houston startup, says its project would create 30 permanent jobs, 400 construction jobs and “an estimated 112 indirect jobs.”
The company’s CEO is John Baardson, the entrepreneur behind Baard Energy’s long-stalled $3.5 billion Ohio River Clean Fuels plant proposed for Wellsville that first promised to process coal to fuel then, two years ago, obtained new investors and a new business plan -- converting natural gas to 53,000 barrels of fuel per day.
Pinto says its business plan is to develop smaller-scale gas-to-liquids facilities, its first in Ashtabula County. “Substantial infrastructure is already present on the site,” the company says, including wastewater treatment plants, an air separation unit, a gas pipeline and product loading facilities for barge and rail. Customers for some of the plant's products also are located nearby.
The gas-to-liquids plant would employ “advanced catalysts and proprietary microchanel reactors” innovated by Volocys Plc, a British company. It would be built by Ventech Engineers International LLC, which designs and constructs modular refineries at its Pasadena, Texas fabrication complex. The modules would be transported to the project site for installation, according to Pinto’s announcement.
“Pinto has the potential to be a very exciting project,” says Brian Anderson, executive director of the Growth Partnership of Ashtabula County. “There will still be some hurdles in terms of financing, permitting for the company, and obviously -- when you’re dealing with new technology -- ramping up from pilot scale to full production.
Design work began in April and could be completed by year-end with construction to start in mid-2014 and operations in “early 2016.”
By that time, Plant C’s pumping system will be at full capacity.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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