Laying the Foundation
Hedrick has been working to deliver this opportunity for a
number of years, and Brian Anderson, the director of the WVU
Energy Institute and technical
pillar lead for the Appalachia
Development Group, joined the
chase for the hub a few years
ago. The basis for the hub is
the fact that West Virginia
and the surrounding states of
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ken-
tucky have a substantial supply
of NGLs. Initially, the focus
was on ethane, which meant
there needed to be an ethane
cracker, and the four states
began to compete with each
other on which state would
win the coveted facility.
“The argument over who
would get the cracker was a
little short sighted,” says He-
drick. “The real question was
how we will responsibly ad-
vantage Appalachia and the U.S. by virtue of this natural gas
growth. The totality of the hub effort was born of this.”
To determine if the hub would have adequate geology to sup-
port its technical feasibility, the Appalachia Development Group,
through Anderson, led a proposal to the Claude Worthington
Benedum Foundation to fund geologic work in identifying
potential subsurface storage locations across West Virginia,
Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those surveys confirmed that the tri-
state region did, in fact, have
the geologic strata that would
be applicable to underground
storage of NGLs.
Last summer, the Appa-
lachia Development Group
was formed, solidif ying
the team behind the hub
effort. In addition to Hed-
rick as CEO and Anderson
as the technical pillar lead,
Joe Bozada, the CEO of En-
vironmental Services Lab-
oratory, serves as chief op-
erating officer and chief
financial officer, and Kathy
Beckett, an environmental
attorney with Steptoe & John-
son PLLC, is the environmen-
tal and sustainability pillar
lead for the group.
“The four of us share a common passion for the delivery
of the hub for those 100,000 jobs and those 100,000 families
that will be touched,” says Hedrick. “More than $6 billion
in annual payroll that should generate $2.9 billion in annual
taxation—we’re all driven by that.”
“Competing for the storage hub
is like competing for the one
cracker years ago. It’s not a
failing for the hub to be in Ohio
or Pennsylvania or Kentucky. We
should define a win as Appalachia
earning the opportunity to have this
industrial spread occur in a safe
and environmentally sound way.”
Congratulations
Steven Eshenaur, D.O.
Class of 1996
from the West Virginia School of
Osteopathic Medicine for being honored
as a member of West Virginia Executive
magazine’s Sharp Shooters Class of 2018.
NO. 1 IN RURAL PRIMARY CARE
WVSOM.edu
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE