As the multi-year, multi-billion-dollar Shell Cracker plant construction project moves forward between Pittsburgh and East Liverpool, ads have now been posted for the first permanent jobs at the facility.
Just 40 jobs are being filled initially, but 600 are expected. Mike Chadsey of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association says it’s a turning point in the whole region.
“This cracker plant is the first step in making the Appalachian basin really competitive.”
That's because the plant will convert much of the production of the shale wells into feed stock for the local plastics and paint industries instead of it being piped to distant energy markets.
“When you’re talking about refining or ethane cracking, that’s the shot in the arm for the Appalachian region that it needed—creating an entire chemical and manufacturing renaissance that we’ve sort of the been waiting on for the last couple of years.”
The cracker plant is opposed by a variety of environmental and property rights groups.
