AREMA 2014 Draft Manuscript Submission Utica East Ohio Midstream, LLC

Harrison Hub Fractionation Facility August 4, 2014

Principal Author: Russell Henestofel, Director of Railroad Engineering Evans, Mechwart, Hambleton, and Tilton, Inc. (EMH&T) 5500 New Albany Road Columbus, Ohio 43054 P – (614) 775.4360 F – (614) 775.4805 rhenestofel@emht.com Co-Author: Brian Rossi, Project Engineer Evans, Mechwart, Hambleton, and Tilton, Inc. (EMH&T) 5500 New Albany Road Columbus, Ohio 43054 P – (614) 775.4374 F – (614) 775.4805 brossi@emht.com WORD COUNT: 2,318 WITHOUT IMAGES 6,068 WITH IMAGES

ABSTRACT

The Harrison Hub Fractionation Facility is a midstream facility that receives a compressed liquid gas via pipeline that is later separated into different liquid gas products (propane, ethane, butane, C5+ or natural gasoline). The 594-acre state-of-the-art fractionation facility is located in Scio, Harrison County, Ohio and is expected to handle a capacity of loading over 120 rail cars per day. With large amounts of loaded cars leaving this facility daily, it was designed to optimize the rail operations by minimizing the amount of car movements and utilizing block swapping and pre-staging/pre-sorting. All of the different products are stored in tanks and loaded onto trucks and rail cars. The rail design of Harrison Hub Facility consists of six (6) receiving and departing tracks, four (4) loading tracks, and five (5) dedicated storage tracks totaling 25 turnouts, two (2) crossovers, and over 10 miles of track. Harrison Hub Fractionation Facility features:

Over one and a half million cubic yards of earthwork was moved in phases 1 and 2 to accommodate this Facility

Covered multi-product rail load out facility with numerous railcar loading spots

Locomotive fueling, servicing and railcar maintenance facilities

This facility has been operational since July 2013 and Phase 2 expansion opened in May 2014 which expanded their operations to an even larger scale. The facility utilizes

© AREMA 2014 1

cutting edge technology including steel ties, automated car tracking and advanced loading programs to increase operational efficiencies.

INTRODUCTION

The 594-acre Fractionation Facility (“Facility”) is located in northern Harrison County, Ohio near the small town of Scio and is part of a $1.6 billion three-plant processing complex. This facility is currently one of the largest midstream service complexes in eastern Ohio. Once fully built, it will be the largest plant in eastern Ohio. It will provide the infrastructure to process natural gas and natural gas liquids from Ohio’s Utica shale play, to store it, and to ship it. Natural gas liquids (NGL’s) are piped to the Harrison Hub Facility from surrounding cryogenic plants, which cool the gas gathered from area wells.

Harrison Hub is one of the first fully integrated gathering, processing and fractionation facilities to be in operation in Eastern, Ohio. The facility processes 90,000 barrels with production increasing as the facility expands. When the facility is fully complete, the Harrison Hub Facility will send over a hundred railcars per day out to market via The Ohio Central Railroad, A Genesee and Wyoming Company. To accommodate the hundreds of railcars each day, a massive rail infrastructure was built in tandem with the fractionation plant within months.

Construction began in October 2012 and was operation 10 months later. At the peak of construction, there were approximately 1,200 workers onsite over the course of 24 hours. A new County road was constructed to divert construction traffic around Scio. In order to achieve the ambitious objective in a short timeframe, EMH&T along with M3 Midstream, LLC assembled the best team and supplier resources available. The new facility utilizes cutting edge technology with an efficient, environmentally friendly design, which was engineered to consider innovation, safety, service performance and operational reliability.

Figure 1: Project Site near Scio, OH in Harrison County

© AREMA 2014 2

FACILITY FEATURES Throughout the facility, unique features were designed to optimize operations by minimizing the amount of car movements and utilizing block swapping and pre-staging/pre-sorting. The facility can be operated from either end of the 1.2-mile long track structure with mainline turnouts and switching leads located on both ends. Ohio Central Railroad built a mile long siding track outside of the facility to be used as empty inbound tank car storage. In addition, the track structure is designed to accommodate a separate 120-car unit train facility to load out products bound for market.

Track construction consisted of a total of approximately 10 miles of track, two (2) crossovers, 25 industry #10 turnouts, and two (2) mainline turnouts. The Facility contains six (6) receiving and departing tracks, four loading (4) tracks, five (5) dedicated storage tracks and one (1) locomotive storage/car repair track. A future unit train facility can be added in the next expansion phase to add approximately three (3) miles of track, 10 industry turnouts, and potentially 30 loading spots. Approximately one and a half million yards of earth were moved and over 400,000 tons of stone were hauled in for slope protection, utility installation, pavement base and ballast. The local quarry ran out of aggregate on multiple occasions due to the demand from construction. The project includes two buildings for facility administration and operations, totaling 13,000 SF. A new AEP electrical substation was installed to power the entire facility. Nearly 31.25 miles of screw piles have been installed for structural support along with approximately 36 miles of steel piping for gas conveyance. In total, Harrison Hub Facility has 870,000 barrels of storage in various storage vessels around

the site.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: Conceptual Plan of Harrison Hub Facility and Phase 2 Rail Expansion

Figure 3: Excavator Removing Soil During Phase 2 Construction.

© AREMA 2014 3

Loading Features Unlike the crude oil that is typically loaded via unit-train and loop track, Harrison Hub Facility uses manifest loading to ship their product. Harrison Hub Facility currently has a total of 16 loading spots (four (4) per loading track) with the potential to expand to a total of 48. One loading track is limited to a single product while the others can load multiple product types. Every loading spot is under a covered canopy to allow for easier and safer loading operations in any weather. RailLink, a Genesee & Wyoming Company, utilizes state of the art automated loading technology to significantly reduce the loading time of each railcar. Sixteen railcars can be spotted, inspected, and loaded within 90 minutes of arriving at the loading rack thanks to the operational advantages of the Harrison Hub Facility.

Figure 4: Track Approaching Loading Area

Figure 5: Aerial View of Loading Rack Area and RailLink Loading Office

© AREMA 2014 4

Equipment/Operational Features To receive, organize, load, and assemble the nightly outbound train, the terminal and loading operations are operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. RailLink utilizes state of the art equipment and multiple locomotives to sort, stage, and turn over the loading rack. By designing the facility to be operated from either end, RailLink can designate separate tasks to be performed from either end of the facility by each of the locomotives. While cars are being loaded at the rack, empty tank cars are pre-staged/pre-sorted onto the loading tracks at the north end of the facility. Each loading track is designed to accommodate 12 empty tank cars without affecting loading operations at the racks. This is possible because portions of the loading tracks are electrically isolated by the use of insulation joints, grounding, and derails. When the tank cars are loaded, the locomotive at the South end will pull the entire cut of 12 cars off the rack and onto a receiving and departure track. Immediately following the full cars being pulled off the rack, the next pre-staged cut of cars will be pushed into position to be loaded, by the other locomotive. Overall, the internal operation of the facility is designed to handle cuts of 12 cars due to each loading track eventually having 12 loading spots per track. A majority of the

Figure 6: Loading Tracks

© AREMA 2014 5

receiving and departure tracks are capable of holding 60 cars and the switching leads can accommodate over 12 cars. To reduce congestion within the facility, RailLink will have access to the new Ohio Central Railroad siding track, to temporarily store the empty inbound tank cars during each switching operation. Technology Features RailLink utilizes state of the art technology to help load the tank cars while they are spotted at the loading rack. This technology increases both safety and loading speed. AEI readers are installed at each end of the facility to scan inbound and outbound tank cars. At any moment RailLink knows where each tank car is located regardless of whether it’s loading, loaded, or empty. RailLink is equipped with handheld scanners to communicate car movements and locations to the yard master. To maintain train schedules and performance reliability, locomotive servicing (including fueling, lube oil and sanding) and railcar maintenance are performed onsite.

Environmental Features The Harrison Hub Facility began as a 594-acre green pastureland in hilly eastern Ohio containing streams, wetlands, and numerous clusters of trees. Since construction began, there has been environmental permitting performed through the Ohio EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and Army Corp of Engineers. Overall site construction and permitting was separated into two (2) phases to streamline the construction process to allow process operations to commence as construction continued.

Figure 7: AEI Reader and Security Gate Located at the East End of the Site

© AREMA 2014 6

During Phase 1 of construction, a Nationwide Permit was issued to allow impacts to streams and isolated wetlands. One (1) stream located on the eastern end of the project was impacted during Phase 1 of construction; however, it was permitted to pass through the site via a box culvert under the rail infrastructure and access roads. In exchange for impacting the streams and wetlands, environmental covenants were placed over portions of the remaining streams. Phase 2 permitting began while Phase 1 construction was underway. For Phase 2, an Ohio EPA 401 and a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers 404 permit were required to allow 8.25 acres of unavoidable impacts to wetlands and streams. Future facility and rail expansion were incorporated into the permitting process to reduce required permitting and timelines from affected construction activities. Even though 8.25 acres of wetlands and streams were filled due to the Phase 2 expansion, there were multiple wetlands and streams preserved and protected with environmental covenants. Offsite mitigation was provided at Little Stillwater Mitigation Site in North Township, Harrison County as well as 15.62 acres of onsite wetland preservation and enhancement. Approximately 2,243 lineal feet of various streams around the 594-acre site were also protected and enhanced including the addition of 50’ buffer protection zones. Within Phase 1 and 2, stormwater design was taken into careful consideration. Phase 2 includes stormwater controls that provide runoff and water quality control for the site. Large hydraulically-connected retention basins were designed to reduce post-construction stormwater release rate lower than pre-existing conditions. The outlet structure works as an inverted siphon to protect downstream waters from any spills in the unlikely event that they would ever occur.

Figure 8: Photo of the Harrison Hub Facility Prior to Construction

© AREMA 2014 7

CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGES To achieve the ambitious schedule of being operational in less than 10 months, an extreme amount of planning and coordination was contributed by all firms and contractors involved. In conjunction with permitting, special design considerations were implemented to allow for easy expansion and construction. The entire rail structure was built using steel ties provided by NARSTCO including the use of steel tie turnouts. The steel ties provided for quick and easy installation and were more cost effective than timber ties. After nearly a full year of facility operations, there has been virtually no maintenance items required to the track infrastructure. To allow for a mainline turnout to be installed at the east end of the facility, a nine (9) foot mainline shift was coordinated with Ohio Central Railroad to create a tangent section of track. Along with the mainline construction, a 1,400’ stub ended rail spur was built into its final position. This spur was utilized during construction for rail and process material shipments via railcars including rail, ties, ballast, towers, storage tanks, etc. This rail spur greatly reduced the amount of trucks traveling through downtown Scio and allowed for larger shipments of materials to be delivered. All rail materials were ordered prior to contractor mobilization to reduce lead times for supplies and ensure schedules were met.

Figure 9: Stormwater Basins Located at the West End of the Site

© AREMA 2014 8

To reduce down time while constructing Phase 2, the rail infrastructure was designed to facilitate operations and allow for easier “tack-on” expansion. Zero track outages were required to double the size of this facility because of the rail construction sequence and design. Multiple grading challenges were encountered throughout construction including rock blasting, wetland construction, and construction sequencing. An archeological dig was required on the eastern portion of the site after discovering items of potential historical significance. Artifacts dated to 250 B.C. were found including a series of camp sites dedicated to the roasting of roots and tubers collected from the nearby wetlands. After retrieving and reporting all found artifacts, the remaining disturbed acreage was cleared by EMH&T’s Archeology department.

Due to environmental permitting challenges on Phase 2, a specific grading and drainage plan was developed to protect all wetlands and streams until the permits were issued. A very detailed construction-sequencing plan was also implemented to ensure environmental features were protected while not hindering the overall construction

Figure 10: Mainline Shift to Allow for Proposed East End Mainline Turnout

Figure 11: Archeological Dig Areas at East End of the Site

© AREMA 2014 9

schedule. To grade through the approximately six (6) acre wetland, ODOT Type B rock was utilized to ‘punch’ through the muck and create a stable bridge over the existing wetland. After the stable rock elevation was approximately 1’ above the existing water level native material was used to fill to final sub-grade elevation. Due to the stiff subsurface soil conditions throughout the site, settlement was not a problem even in the wetland.

Figure 12: Berm for Wetland Protection

Figure 13: ODOT Type B Installation in Wetland Located at West End of the Site

© AREMA 2014 10

CONCLUSION The integration of rail infrastructure, operations, equipment, technology, and construction sequencing has allowed for the Harrison Hub Facility to become one of the first and best facilities of its kind in the country. With the oil and gas industry continuing to expand in eastern Ohio and elsewhere in the country this facility has the potential to continue to expand and be the staple of the industry.

Figure 14: Pre-Construction

Figure 15: Post-Construction

© AREMA 2014 11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS EMH&T – CIVIL/RAIL ENGINEERING, SURVEYING, ENVIRONMENTAL, ARCHEOLOGY, AND STORMWATER RAILLINK, A GENESEE AND WYOMING COMPANY – CONTRACT SWITCHER OHIO CENTRAL RAILROAD, A GENESEE AND WYOMING COMPANY – SERVING RAILROAD M3 MIDSTREAM, LLC – OWNER/OPERATOR E.S. WAGNER – GRADING AND DRAINAGE CONTRACTOR ACME RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION – RAIL CONTRACTOR GEOTECHNICAL CONSULTANTS INC. – GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEER PROGRESS RAIL – RAIL SUPPLIER NARTSCO – TIE SUPPLIER

© AREMA 2014 12

© AREMA 2014 13

© AREMA 2014 14

• 6 RECEIVING AND DEPARTURE TRACKS

• 4 LOADING TRACKS

• 5 STORAGE TRACKS

• 1 RIP TRACK1 RIP TRACK

• AEP ELECTRICAL SUBSTATION

• 36 MILES OF ABOVE36 MILES OF ABOVE GROUND PIPING

• 31.25 MILES OF SCREW PILES

© AREMA 2014 15

• OFFSITE MITIGATION

• 15.62 ACRES OF WETLAND PRESERVATIONPRESERVATION

• 2,243 L.F. OF STREAM PRESERVATION

• 50’ BUFFER PROTECTION ZONES

© AREMA 2014 16

DECEMBER 2012 MAY 2013

• STEEL TIES USED FOR QUICK AND EASY INSTALLATION

• ALL TURNOUTS USED STEEL

• COST EFFECTIVE• COST EFFECTIVE

• LOW MAINTENANCE

© AREMA 2014 17

© AREMA 2014 18