Geospatial Network Approach for Assessing Economic Potential of Ethylene-to-Fuel Technology in the Marcellus Shale Region

Abstract

The Marcellus Shale region is rich in natural gas liquids (NGLs) and a likely future hub for NGL derivatives such as ethylene. A geospatial network model of the U.S. petrochemicals and refining industry is developed and utilized to assess the potential for the adoption of a technology for oligomerization of ethylene to gasoline, or a gasoline blend stock, as a means to utilize NGL derivatives available in the region. The model is a mixed-integer linear program with the objective of minimizing the total annual cost incurred by the regional industry. Case studies in which this technology is added to the industry network model are described, and sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate the effect of model parameters such as the prices of crude oil and ethylene. These results can be used as cost target benchmarks for this new technology. More broadly, this work demonstrates a geospatial network modeling approach for evaluating new processing technology.

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