In June 2016, Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC committed to building the Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex, a multibillion dollar petrochemical plant located near Pittsburgh.
Wayne Poindexter, senior manager for Shell, reflected on the enormity of the challenge to an area that had limited familiarity with undertaking a project of the complex's size and scope.
"It really goes back to understanding the area in which you're trying to build a project," he said. "Think about that. This is a big project in western Pennsylvania where nothing like this has ever been built. Looking at the level of the craft workforce and the field leadership in the area, it was a challenge. They didn't have the tools. Really understanding the collaborative efforts of both teams to develop the tools they needed at the jobsite and what they needed to do next really made a big difference for us."
Shell chose Bechtel as its contractor for construction of the facility.
"The project has been a hub of innovation for both Shell and Bechtel in supporting the digital requirements Shell has," said Christine Thoms-Knox, manager of innovation for Bechtel, at the World Petrochemical Conference 2022, presented by IHS Markit. "In collaboration, team members have piloted a number of unique solutions that have brought value that have been applied to other projects in our portfolio and beyond."
Lower-cost feedstock of ethane derived from the nearby Utica and Marcellus basins will supply the site's ethylene cracker and three polyethylene derivatives units. Shell estimates the annual yield will be 1.6 million tons of polyethylene pellets that will, in turn, be used to manufacture plastic items including food packaging, automotive components, medical equipment and many more products essential to consumers' daily standard of living.
The innovation culture on the project fostered and developed an integrated network of tools, Thoms-Knox reported. "This project has more technology solutions on it than any I've ever seen. We have also continued to look for new technology in other areas, like net-zero, to provide new approaches to our customers. We work with [people] both inside and outside of our organization in order to source new ideas and collaborate with our customers. Communicating with them, starting in the very early stages of their project, [enables us to] find ways to have partnerships."
It's all about ownership
Poindexter identified why he believes Shell's culture of innovation in Pennsylvania has been so successful.
"If you really think about what we developed on this project, I think it comes down to one word, and that's 'ownership.' Usually, on typical projects in the U.S., you have a client and a contractor. On this one, we had the added dimension of the building trades and associations," Poindexter said. "It was really about being able to tie all three together, understanding their roles and responsibilities and how each one impacts the other, and putting that down in writing to codify it."
Poindexter also praised the implementation of site-wide training classes.
"Everyone on the site - from the Shell staff, the contractors' staffs and the building trades union guys - really understood what their roles and responsibilities were," he said.
Poindexter pointed to the level of innovation and communication present across all levels of the project's workforce, and lauded managers for asking workers what they needed to enable higher levels of productivity. "What they came back with was developed into a suite of applications that we used to manage the job," he said.
Those applications are written in a lowcode/no-code environment, and they were so successful that they have been collected into a central repository for fast reference for future jobs.
Pennsylvania Chemicals will also be a boon to the area's employment, providing nearly 9,500 construction jobs during the building phase as well as approximately 600 permanent jobs when the site becomes fully operational later this year.
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