In the United States, chemical companies mainly use ethane, propane and natural gas condensate from shale gas as key production raw materials. Abundant and cheap natural gas and natural gas condensate stimulate companies from all over the world to build new projects or expand production capacity in the United States.

At the end of last year, an economic report issued by the American Chemical Council (ACC) showed that Appalachia would become the second petrochemical and plastic resin manufacturing center in the United States after the Gulf Coast region.
It is understood that the Appalachian region is located between the most economically developed eastern coastal region of the United States and the Midwest, where industry and agriculture are quite developed. Dooley said that building Appalachia into the second petrochemical and plastic resin production center in the United States will bring huge economic benefits. "This is because, on the one hand, the region is close to the world-class raw material suppliers - Marcellus / Utica and Rogersville shale formations, and on the other hand, it is not far from the user markets in the central and western regions and the east coast. This extremely advantageous convenient location is easy to attract some chemical companies to invest, and some companies have even announced relevant projects. We expect that there will be great potential for the development of the petrochemical industry in this region." He said.

ACC's report outlines the blueprint of the second Petrochemical Center: building a natural gas condensate and chemical (such as ethylene and propylene) storage center in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky in the Appalachian region; Build a 500 mile oil and gas pipeline network in the region; Build related petrochemical and plastic resin production projects and other energy infrastructure. ACC uses the implan model to analyze the direct, indirect and related employment opportunities that this will bring, as well as the impact on local taxes.

Dooley analyzed several key points to realize this idea. He pointed out that the correct policy is the key to realizing this vision. At present, under the initiative of senators Capito, Manchin and Portman, the two parties have introduced the Appalachian ethane storage center research bill, which is an important step to build the second petrochemical center in Appalachian. The construction of the Appalachian ethane storage center will help enhance the potential of the US energy and manufacturing industries.

ACC analysis predicts that with the infrastructure, Appalachia will attract 32.4 billion US dollars of investment to petrochemical products and derivatives projects and 3.4 billion US dollars of investment to plastic products projects. Specifically, five ethane cracking projects and two propane dehydrogenation (PDH) facilities will be built. Among them, three ethane cracking projects are used to produce polyethylene products, and the ethylene of two ethane cracking projects is used to produce downstream derivatives. Both sets of PDH facilities are further developed downstream to produce polypropylene resin. ACC pointed out that these investment projects are in progress and the construction of the projects will continue beyond 2020.