Royal Dutch Shell said it expects to decide by the end of the year where it will build a “world-scale” ethylene cracker in the Marcellus Shale region, and it said the three states where it is considering construction of the facility are Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh told the Associated Press the company would invest “several billion” dollars for a facility, which may include several specialized crackers.

In a report in March, the American Chemical Council said such a facility would cost about $16.2 billion, generate about 17,000 jobs in the chemical industry and another 395,000 jobs in other areas, and $4.4 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues.

“It shows that the Marcellus Shale is real, that its natural gas supplies are enormous and that the industry is here to stay for the long run,” Jeff Eshelman, spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), told NGI. “The investment and commitment that Shell is showing is proof positive that the Marcellus is the real deal.”

Travis Windle, spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), concurred.

“Investments on this scale are further affirmation of the Marcellus Shale’s long-term significance, both regionally and nationally,” Windle told NGI. “As more wells are drilled and more American energy is responsibly harnessed, we’ll continue to see genuine economic benefits like this generated.”

Eshelman said the IPAA was unaware of any of the three states having an inside track to landing the Shell facility. Windle declined to speculate and deferred the question to Shell officials.

“Shell is a great corporate citizen and one of several world-class corporations reviewing the possibility of locating a cracker in the Appalachian region,” West Virginia Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette told NGI. “We believe there will be at least one and very possibly more than one facility that will be located in this region. West Virginia is aggressively competing for those sites.”

But Burdette added that a facility would benefit the entire Marcellus Shale region, “regardless of in which state a cracker might ultimately be located.”

Shell reported this summer that it was evaluating derivatives for the facility and the leading option is polyethylene (PE), a plastic polymer primarily used in packaging. The company said demand for PE was expected to grow and predicted that most PE production would be used by industries in the northeastern U.S., both of which make the construction of an ethylene cracker in the Marcellus region an attractive option.

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