Royal Dutch Shell’s massive petrochemical complex – spread across a 386-acre site along the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania – is at the peak construction phase, according to an article from The Business Journal. When the site’s ethane cracker plant begins operations sometime in the early 2020s, it is reportedly expected to employ 600 workers and produce more than a million tons of plastic annually. Moreover, according to the article, it could lead to 100,000 spinoff jobs as related plastics and chemical industries develop across the region over the next decade.
Experts report that the region could accommodate four more cracker plants due to the area’s concentration of wet gases found in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays and the extraction of these gases through the hydraulic fracturing process a decade ago. Area chambers of commerce are reportedly working to increase local awareness of the potential of the petrochemical industry. According to the article, development agencies across the five-county northeastern Ohio-western Pennsylvania region are actively working to capitalize on the plastics and chemical plants likely to locate in the vicinity of the Shell cracker.
Read the entire article here.