Pembina ups capital budget for Empress in Cypress County
By Medicine Hat News on November 2, 2019.
Pembina Pipelines will build new power facilities at its straddle plant in Cypress County, according to the company’s new earnings release. That brings the total combined capital budget to improve the Empress plant site to about $240 million over the next three years. Half the amount is a previously announced effort to build propane production and a rail yard. The other $120 million could be spent over three years to build a co-generation plant that would heat and provide electricity to the facility that handles huge volumes of natural gas. The power plant, first mentioned in Fridays’ release of quarterly earnings, was approved by the board subsequent to the quarter’s end, and is subject to approval from utility regulators. It “will reduce overall operating costs by providing power and heat to the extraction and fractionation facilities.” The company has developed similar facility at its Redwater facilities over the past several years. The new facility could be operating in 2023. The release also states equipment has arrived and initial work is proceeding on the propane facility, which will support the company’s new $2.5-billion plastics facility near Edmonton, and is expected to be complete in late 2020. The company also recently spent $190 million developing new ethane storage caverns at Burstall, Sask. Med Hat majors World commodity prices are taking profits of two industrial players in Medicine Hat in different directions. A drop in world methanol prices led to a quarterly loss for Methanex, the company’s latest earnings release shows. It recorded a net loss of $10 million in the third-quarter caused by a 15 per cent drop in the price per tonne of the industrial chemical this summer compared to the spring. As well on Wednesday, the third-quarter statements from CF Industries, show that fertilizer sales continued to build while cost of input natural gas continued to fall compared to a year earlier. The Illinois-based company that has a major manufacturing plant in Medicine Hat stated that in nine-months ending Sept. 30, earnings doubled to $438 million following a slow start to the year caused by poor planting conditions in the U.S. The firm doesn’t strip out results on a plant by plant basis, but the Anhydrous Ammonia production held steady – the sales price per tonne fell during the quarter but is up slightly for the year. Average cost of natural gas across its production facilities fell to $2.24 per gigajoule during the quarter, down one third, or 95-cents, compared to the summer of 2018. Methanex CEO John Floren stated the company, which announced a major facility expansion on the U.S. Gulf Coast this summer, is positioned to “navigate the cyclical nature of our industry.” “The strategic investments we have made in our business have strengthened our asset base, significantly increased our global production capacity, enhanced our ability to service customers and substantially improved our earnings capability,” he stated in a company release. CF expects “nitrogen industry fundamentals will continue to improve in both the near- and longer-term as the global market continues to tighten over the coming years … (near term) demand from import-dependent regions should support global pricing.” 20-19
