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Měnglà, Ebola and the lesser-known Marburg are all related as members of the filovirus family. There is no evidence yet that it has spread to humans. Filoviruses are extremely pathogenic and can cause severe fevers that are often fatal. It is at least the seventh filovirus that has been found, of which four are known to cause disease in people, according to the CDC. Like Měnglà, Ebola is thought to have originated in bats. The viruses are typically spread by infected bodily fluids. Researchers are now focusing their efforts on understanding how bats could contribute to a possible epidemic.

The general manager for a Royal Dutch Shell petrochemical plant in Louisiana said the company is committed to expanding its business along the Gulf Coast, with demand in Asia and the United States projected to continue growing. Houston-based Shell Chemical said Monday that the company will expand the petrochemical complex in Geismar, Louisiana to produce more chemicals used in plastics, industrial oils and drilling fluids as part of a $717 million investment. "It's a pretty big deal in our chemicals business. Our view is this project will be very profitable for Shell," Gesimar General Manager Rhoman Hardy said in an...

LyondellBasell Industries petrochemical giant said Thursday it plans to build a new plant near Houston at its Channelview complex that represents the company's largest capital investment ever. The PO/TBA plant would produce 900 million pounds of propylene oxide, 2 billion pounds of tertiary butyl alcohol and its derivatives annually. Propylene oxide is a chemical used to make everything from antifreeze to cosmetics. The tertiary butyl alcohol is a byproduct used as a solvent to make chemicals and gasoline additives. The move is part of the Gulf Coast's petrochemical boom that has seen companies taking advantage of cheap natural gas used...

U.S. chemical plants are expected to grow in the coming months as they take advantage of cheap natural gas prices and a strengthening economy that has boosted domestic demand for raw materials used in housing and automobiles, a new credit rating analysis finds. But falling oil prices and a strong U.S. dollar threaten earnings for several domestic chemical companies, according to an economic and ratings outlook compiled by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Domestic chemical companies have been able to crank out chemicals at a lower cost because they rely primarily on natural gas to feed their operations while their...

Earlier this month, BP’s latest Statistical Review unintentionally reopened a debate into whether the US has regained the crown as the world’s top oil producer after decades of being out-gunned by Saudi Arabia and Russia. Ostensibly a straight-forward measure of which country tops the leaderboard on oil output, BP’s widely-read yardstick has the US eclipsing both Saudi Arabia and Russia for the first time last year since 1975. Fueled by booming shale oil, BP said, US oil output hit 11.64 million b/d last year, a narrow but decisive margin over Saudi Arabia’s 11.51 million b/d. The devil is in the...

Siluria Technologies’ new ethylene plant is a 4-story-tall maze of pipes and valves and pressure vessels. If it were a standalone plant it might be impressive. But this one is tucked in among dozens of giant petrochemical complexes along the Houston Ship Channel and situated within a larger polypropylene site operated by Brazilian chemicals giant Braskem So how does this facility stand out? Because it’s unique. All the rest of the world’s ethylene is made the old-fashioned way: by breaking apart larger hydrocarbons such as naphtha (sourced from crude oil) or ethane (found in natural gas). In contrast, Siluria’s technology...

North American chemical companies have seen their revenues slip with the plunging crude price, but they aren’t expected to abandon the billions worth of expansions they announced when profits were higher, a new report finds. Petrochemical companies have enjoyed deep discounts on the oil-based naptha and natural gas liquids they use to power their plants since the price of oil has collapsed in recent months, but chemicals they manufacture have also been selling for cheaper, eroding their margins, according to a new report by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Ethylene, a key building block for plastics, now fetches 35 percent...

Royal Dutch Shell warned Gov. Tom Wolf that policies which hurt gas production could affect the company's decision on whether to build a multibillion-dollar plant in Beaver County to turn ethane into plastics, the head of a gas industry group said Wednesday. “I sat in a meeting with Gov. Wolf in August, where leadership from Shell looked the now-governor directly in the eye and said, ‘If you jeopardize the ethane supply, we likely don't invest here,' ” Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Spigelmyer told Tribune-Review editors and reporters. “That's a big deal. We need to make sure we have opportunities...

On Monday, the West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the siting certificate for Moundsville Power LLC to construct a 549-MW combined cycle natural gas power plant in Marshall County. It will be the first to also burn ethane. The company is also touting the project’s role in helping to offset the effect of area coal plant closings. With the PSC approval in hand, Moundsville Power’s next step is financing. Construction is scheduled to begin in late 2015, and the plant is expected to be operational in early 2018. The Moundsville Power facility will be a wholesale generator for the...

The U.S. chemical industry is expanding at a healthy clip thanks to a domestic drilling renaissance that has flooded the world with cheap oil and gas. The industry grew by 2 percent this year and is expected to swell further next year as advances in drilling and completion technologies unlock vast new supplies of hydrocarbons that chemical companies rely on to make products and fuel their plants, according to the American Chemistry Council’s annual year-end review of the industry. “The wind is back in our sails,” Kevin Swift, chief economist for the trade group, said in a statement. “During the...

The United States has enough shale gas to supply the surge of recently announced petrochemical expansions and, despite anemic prices, producers have no plans to stop pumping as long as demand exists, a Southwestern Energy executive said Thursday. Gas prices collapsed two years ago and while they have recovered somewhat, some drillers have turned their focus to more lucrative regions rich in oil and other liquids. But companies that specialize in natural gas production continue to produce more, spurred on by technological advances and cheaper drilling and completion costs that allow them to produce more with less. “Looking at the...

South African chemical company Sasol Ltd. has given final approval to move forward with an $8.1 billion ethane cracker and derivatives complex at its existing Lake Charles manufacturing facility, the company announced Monday. The ethane cracker will produce 1.5 million tons of ethylene every year. The process involves breaking down the molecules of ethane -- which is found in natural gas -- to create ethylene, a key ingredient for the petrochemical industry. It's used in products like food packaging, fragrances, detergents and tires. After clearing a key permitting hurdle earlier this year, the company said Monday it has given the...

Propane demand (measured as product supplied) is expected to be 100,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) lower on average in 2014 compared to 2013 because of reduced demand from petrochemical plants, according to EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook. In contrast to propane used as a heating fuel in buildings during colder months and as a crop-drying fuel during the harvest season, both of which are highly seasonal and weather dependent, petrochemical consumption of propane has relatively little seasonality. Beginning in mid-2013, higher propane prices reduced demand from petrochemical users. This decline is evident after accounting for the seasonal variation in annual consumption:...

Oil and natural gas production in Eagle Ford Shale generated an estimated $87 billion in total economic output for Texas and supported nearly 155,000 full-time jobs in 2013. That’s according to a new study released Tuesday by the University of Texas at San Antonio Institute for Economic Development. The shale region, which encompasses a 21-county, and generated more than $4.4 billion in tax revenue to local and state governments in 2013. Based on these updated figures, UTSA projects that the shale region will support more than 196,000 jobs and generate $137 billion in total economic output for Texas by 2013.

With an $860 million deal announced this week, Buckeye Partners is betting on condensate. Condensate, a type of light crude oil, has been flowing in increasing quantities from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas as technological advances boost production there. And with more condensate coming from the region — as well as the possibility that lightly refined condensate may be exempt from a U.S. ban on most crude oil exports — many midstream companies are looking at potential profit in getting the light oil from the South Texas wells to market. From 2009 to 2012, annual U.S. production of...

Growing global demand is pushing a flurry of new construction, especially on the Texas Gulf Coast, of units for direct manufacture of propylene — a key chemical building block historically derived as a byproduct of other processes . In North America, propylene primarily has come from petrochemical plants using petroleum-derived naphtha as a feedstock. But that’s changing as the plants switch to ethane, a natural gas liquid that is now abundant and cheap because of the nation’s surging natural gas production. The ethane feedstock, however, produces little propylene. Propylene supplies have declined, contributing to occasional shortages, according to Enterprise Products...

Appalachian Resins, Inc. (AR) plans to lease approximately 50 acres of land in Salem Township, Ohio, to build an integrated 600 million pound per year ethylene/polyethylene production facility, the Houston-based firm announced in an emailed statement to DownstreamToday. "There is no difference in our development activities, we have essentially only moved across the Ohio River," James Cutler, AR's CEO, said Sunday after announcing his company's signing of a land lease letter of intent with the Monroe County (Ohio) Port Authority. "We will not be integrating with an existing operating (brownfield) facility but will be more of a 'greenfield' location. However,...

Capitalizing on abundant supplies of cheap natural gas liquids unlocked in the U.S. shale boom, LyondellBasell plans to build a chemical plant on the Texas Gulf Coast, the company announced Monday. With the capacity to produce 900 million pounds of propylene oxide and 2 billion pounds of tertiary butyl alcohol each year, the plant will be the largest of its kind for the Houston-based plastics, chemicals and refining giant, spokesman George Smalley said. The company operates several such plants in the Houston area. LyondellBasell did not disclose how much the plant will cost, but projects of similar size cost more...

Cheap, abundant U.S. shale gas soon will find its way to a new market: The flood of people moving from the countryside to the dense cities of developing countries. In a few years, the gas will arrive in China, India and Latin America as resin pellets that will become plastic products like food packaging, a key component for urbanizing populations as consumers trade farming markets for preserved foods. It’s a huge, hungry market. Shortly after U.S. gas prices collapsed a few years ago, a half-dozen energy companies raced to build plants along the Gulf Coast that can break natural gas...

Houston-based pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners has signed a 30-year agreement with the Port of Houston Authority and will build its new ethane export facility at the Houston Ship Channel, company and port officials said Thursday. The company first announced plans for the project in April but didn’t say exactly where the facility would be located. The company said it expects the ship channel facility to be online by the third quarter of 2016. It said it already has contracts in place for some ethane customers and is in talks with others for the remaining capacity. The facility will have...