Explosions and Sinkholes: The Sordid History of Sunoco's Pipelines in Pennsylvania
A leading pipeline operator is accused of using a “frankenpipe” to transport highly volatile liquids.
On paper, it might appear that Sunoco Logistics Partners is having a difficult time figuring out the logistics of pipelines, even though that’s its core business. In September 2018, for instance, Sunoco began operating a new, 100-mile natural gas pipeline in Pennsylvania called the Revolution. One week into service, a segment of the Revolution was hit by a landslide and subsequently exploded, leveling a house and forcing an evacuation about 30 miles outside Pittsburgh.
As state regulators began investigating the Revolution explosion, Sunoco moved ahead with construction on a different group of pipelines in Pennsylvania known as the Mariner East project, despite concerns from locals that this project could be even more explosive.
Unlike a regular natural gas pipeline, the Mariner East pipelines are intended to carry particularly volatile chemicals known as natural gas liquids, containing ethane, propane, and butane left over from shale drilling operations in the eastern United States. The Mariner East pipelines would ship the liquids from shale fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio to a refinery in Marcus Hook, about 25 miles away from Philadelphia. From there, the chemicals would then be exported to Scotland for the manufacturing of plastics, the point of this all being to “wring as much revenue as they could from their Northeast wells,” as one industry trade publication explains.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/epgamp/explosions-and-sinkholes-the-sordid-history-of-sunocos-pipelines-in-pennsylvania
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