West Keating natural gas synthesis facility planning continues
HARRISBURG, PA – KeyState Natural Gas Synthesis plant CEO Perry Babb says construction of the proposed $400 million facility in West Keating Township could begin as early as early 2022.
Babb on Monday provided an online update to a meeting of the state House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. He said engineering and planning (then to be followed by permitting) are proceeding. He said the engineering portion of the project has a 2-year time frame. Once state and federal permitting are completed, he said, construction could begin six months later.
Babb told the committee a project of such scope is a ten year process. He said the actual construction could begin in early 2022, with a completion date of late 2024 or early 2025.
If and when built, the plant would provide hydrogen, ammonia, and urea for industrial, medical, agriculture, and transportation uses. It would create a combined 800 construction and permanent jobs, according to project backers. .
Babb last year had offered this overview on the plant’s scope, ticketed for a rural part of West Keating Township, near the Clinton County border with Centre and Clearfield counties:
“KeyState is a historic project in both economic and environmental impacts. Onsite Marcellus natural gas production, combined with state-of-the-art methane emissions remediation, is used to create low-carbon and GHG-reducing products, and great long-term manufacturing jobs. CO2 is captured and stored a mile underground, a first in Pennsylvania, and manufacturing becomes the new ‘green jobs,’ and a low-carbon future for natural gas is born.”
It had been reported earlier that if studies confirm the plant’s feasibility, phase III final engineering would commence and regional planning agency SEDA-COG would help identify funding to build out the necessary infrastructure, as KeyState finalizes investors to help build the plant.
The plant would be in a federal opportunity zone which provides tax benefits for investing capital gains in low-income community census tracts. The incentive offers deferral, reduction, and potential elimination of certain federal capital gains taxes.
