W&J professors’ study shows cracker plants enhance host counties
Courtesy of Sarah Dudik/Washington & Jefferson College
Rob Dunn, associate professor of economics at Washington & Jefferson College, speaks at a 2018 cracker plant symposium.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Rebecca Matsco, chairwoman of the Potter Township supervisors in Beaver County, speaks Tuesday during the ethane cracker plant symposium at Washington & Jefferson College.
A year ago, Rob Dunn freely admits, he knew “very little about ethylene.”
He does now.
Dunn and his wife, Leslie, economics professors at Washington & Jefferson College, devoted more than a year to studying petrochemical cracker facilities in the United States. They began tackling that endeavor in the middle of 2017, a few months before Royal Dutch Shell began construction of an ethylene cracker plant in Potter Township, Beaver County.
Tuesday afternoon, Rob Dunn presented the couple’s findings and conclusions during an ethane cracker plant symposium at W&J. (And the conclusions would make a typical Beaver Countian smile.)
He was one of three speakers – along with Rebecca Matsco, chairwoman of the Potter supervisors, and John Goberish, dean of Workforce and Continuing Education at Community College of Beaver County.
The event attracted an audience of about 75, who engaged the speakers in a question-and-answer session at the end.
Shell’s plant in Potter is an intriguing subject throughout the tri-state. It is a $6 billion project unfolding on a 340-tract along the Ohio River, where Horsehead Corp. operated a zinc smelter for many years, on land that required significant remediation. Several thousand will be employed during the buildup, and once the facility is operating in the early 2020s, about 600 full-time employees are expected.
Manufacturing of plastics is expected to be a major outcome of the operation. A cracker plant “cracks” ethane molecules into petrochemical building blocks that can be refined to create polyethylene, a plastic used for various purposes, from food packaging to automotive parts.
This will be the first U.S. cracker operation outside of the Gulf of Mexico in more than 20 years, although plans for another may be announced by the end of the year. Optimism has been expressed in some quarters about a plant proposed for Belmont County, Ohio, about 40 miles from Washington.
The Dunns examined data from the 3,140 counties in the continental United States between 2001 and 2016 and compared statistics from the 3,124 that did not have a cracker facility with the 16 that did. Rob Dunn said they wanted to examine “observable data” rather than rely on predictions.
Rob Dunn meticulously outlined his study before explaining the takeaways of the study during a PowerPoint presentation. The couple found that counties with a cracker facility have higher levels of employment and higher levels of earnings.
From their data, they projected that “employment and earnings in Beaver could (should) adjust to higher levels when (the) plant is operational, as industry matures.”
The Dunns also concluded that counties bordering a cracker facility have lower levels of employment than counties with the plants, but faster rates of employment growth and higher earnings levels. Washington borders Beaver.
Matsco kicked off the program Tuesday morning by outlining the history of the project, which began with Shell announcing its interest in erecting a cracker in her township in 2012. There was speculation as to whether it would actually happen until June 2016, when the company announced it would build there.
She said the process wasn’t easy. “We had three concerns: light, sound and traffic and safety issues. But we had strong planning and permitting processes.”
She had lofty praise for Shell, which relocated part of Route 18 and worked well with the township.
“It evolved into a great public-private partnership,” Matsco said.