Almost four years after it signed an agreement with Hess Corporation (New York City / USA; www.hess.com) to receive ethane from the Bakken Shale formation (see Plasteurope.com of 26.07.2010), Canada’s Nova Chemicals (Calgary, Alberta; www.novachem.com) announced that the first barrels of the feedstock are being utilised at its complex in Joffre, Alberta. The gas is transported from Hess’ plant in Tioga, North Dakota / USA by means of the Vantage Pipeline, which Nova Chemicals operates. Once the gas arrives at the Alberta Ethane Gathering System (AEGS) in Empress, Alberta, it is then connected to a pipeline to Joffre.

With an initial capacity of 40,000 barrels per day, the Vantage Pipeline can be expanded to more than 60,000 barrels per day, Nova said, adding that the latter figure reflects more than 20% of Alberta’s existing installed ethylene production capacity.

Nova Chemicals acting CEO Todd Karran called the arrival of Bakken Shale ethane an important milestone in the company’s 2020 strategy to capitalise on North American feedstock, adding that, “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.” Earlier this year, the Canadian group announced that it had begun working with ethane sourced from the Marcellus Shale Basin at its cracker in Corunna, Ontario / Canada – see Plasteurope.com of 27.01.2014.