What MAGA looks like: A report from West Virginia

americanthinker.com ^ | Thomas Lifson

[RoosterRedux]

The economic vector of West Virginia (and parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio adjoining it) has reversed course since the election of President Donald Trump, going from depressed (and forgotten) to growing and attracting huge structural investments from overseas. You can see the changes on the ground, not just in dry economic statistics. It is one thing to read about GNP growth roughly doubling since President Trump reformed the oppressive regulatory environment and devoted attention to reviving King Coal to his former majesty in West Virginia (and then some).

Casey Jenkins of the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader writes from Wheeling, WV about what is already visible and what is on the way for one of the most depressed areas of the nation:

As 2017 closes, the wait is on to see how the announcement by China Energy to spend $83.7 billion to build petrochemical plants and electricity generators in West Virginia will unfold in 2018 and beyond. The proposed PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker for Belmont County, meanwhile, a project with an estimated price tag of up to $6 billion, will eventually realize an affirmative or negative decision, as well.

Still, even before these “downstream” investments, new pipelines continue to be built, new wells are being drilled and fracked, and more coal continues to be shipped out of the region.

[MSF BU]

Gee...somebody is apparently driving folks to drink in D.C.; wonder what’s going on :)

[Maine Mariner]

Is the river frozen now?

[Maine Mariner]

Five of my students who have majored in Power Engineering Technology, an ABET accredited program have gone to work for waste to energy plants in the past few months!

[buckalfa]

The proof will be if main street rural West Virginia starts to prosper and if the out migration from the state stops.

[Pining_4_TX]

This really boggles the mind. That Democrats are so committed to their party,no matter how much it hurts people they are supposed to care about, that they will continue to espouse policies they know are destructive. It not only applies here, but also in inner city districts.

[buckalfa]

The proof will be if main street rural West Virginia starts to prosper and if the out migration from the state stops.

[HLPhat]

>>Gee...somebody is apparently driving folks to drink in D.C.; wonder what’s going on :)

Well, let's see what professor Peabody and the Wayback machine says...

First seal the Ukrainian border, then starve 10 million people to death while exporting grain in exchange for Western Military Industrial hardware required to protect the Socialist Utopia...

[Harvest of Despair Soviet Communism engineered Ukraine Famine Genocide 1933)]

https://youtu.be/afVdnbMd6gA?t=40m22s

 

Last but not least, you fleece what's left of the Alcoholic population by selling them their own blood-grain.

 

Rinse, Wash, Repeat.

Nothing New Under the Aten!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vr-EKwC8YU

 

 

[mad_as_he$$]

Plant to convert ethane into feed stocks for other chemical products. A large portion of which goes into polyethylene. Milk jugs, packing materials, sheet products and plastic pipe.

[Sam_Damon]

Author got the location of the paper super-wrong. Times Leader is in Martins Ferry, Ohio, around 340 miles away from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Company wanting to build a cracker to take advantage of shale gas, PTT, is a Thailand outfit. They’ve sunk substantial amounts of money into engineering design for an ethane cracker, but have not committed to building one in that area.

Decision originally set for 4th quarter 2017, now projected for sometime in 2018.

[DarthVader]

This is only one thing that the Democrats are going to have a hard time dealing with this year.

[spokeshave]

“ethane cracker?” What is that?

Feedstock for the petrochemical industries

...based on low energy costs and abundant supplies of Oil and LNG.

To put that Feedstock thingy in perspective:

The USA will end up owning big chunks of these industries The U.S. is expected to see a wave of petrochemical plant openings between now and next year. Those plants represent about $50 billion of $160 billion in manufacturing investment earmarked by the industry since 2012, according to James Fitterling, president and COO of Dow Chemical. Among them are several big ethylene plants, including one expected to be opened by Dow in Freeport, Texas, in the second quarter.

"It's about 1.5 million tons of new capacity for us. It will be up in the second quarter sometime," said Fitterling, speaking in Houston at the CERAWeek conference, sponsored by IHS Markit. He said Dow also opened a billion-dollar propane dehydrogenation plant in Freeport at the end of 2015. "That was the first megaproject we've done on the Gulf Coast for quite some time." Industry executives say this is the first big wave of chemical plant construction in decades.

President Donald J. Trump tweeted congratulations on Exxon's investment and promise of jobs. But the petrochemical renaissance has been building for several years. Trump's policy may unleash more if it results in the creation of pipelines and other infrastructure.

"The U.S. has gone from a shale gas boom to a petrochemical boom," said Scott Sheffield, CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources. While natural gas industry experts discussed the outlook for a long period of low gas prices at the conference, the petrochemical industry described what only can be viewed as a boom in an industry that had been declining in the United States.

Fitterling said there was a wave of plants that started construction back in the 2012 time frame, and between 2017 and 2018, there will be approximately $50 billion of that total $160 billion of capacity up and running. "These are all downstream petrochemical plants, including ethylene facilities, propylene facilities and all the downstream products associated with them.

Another wave of plants — some that started and some that were a little bit delayed and slid out to the 2019 time frame — represent another $12 billion," Fitterling said. There are more than 20 big projects and other smaller ones, all which should be completed by 2023.

Another wave of new capacity is likely to be planned after that, Fitterling said. There are estimates that the current planned investment could generate 70,000 to 80,000 direct jobs.

Just a little bit of the President Donald J. Trump leadership in MAGA

[CincyRichieRich]

The Ohio river is not Frozen as far as I can see in 1977 I think we had about 20 days of 10 degrees or less in a row I hope it never ever see that I was not here then.

[Deplorable American1776]

China Energy is investing here? Nice...Great for the depressed areas of WV, PA and OH.

[daler]

It's quite refreshing to read an analysis like this, particularly after scanning the editorial page of my local rag this morning.

"How can Trump be so out of touch?"

"Can't Congress do more about Trump?"

"Voters should use ballot box to control Trump in 2018"

and (next to a picture of the president)

"A year of chaos, division, disruption in national politics"

Is just a sampling of the claptrap that greeted me on this first day of the year, setting the stage, I'm sure for the kind of garbage we'll all continue to be exposed to in 2018.

[Deplorable American1776]

A Florida native on Ethane?? 😀 (A Florida native is called a Cracker)

[GOPJ]

Employment up, drug use goes down. Wow, it’s not rocket science.

Suicide rates are probably down too... Thanks President Trump.

[xrmusn]

When I venture into WV on occasion I make it a point to ask a local if it is true the WINDMILLS run on electricity and if someone doesn’t plug them in they won’t turn.

I have been using that ‘corn’ since first noticed them and as of yet NO ONE has ‘defended’ them.
First part of an ‘answer’ is usually a scowl then a disbelieving look then a rail about the ‘bird killers’/scenery busters etc etc..

Was watching an old/modern ‘Oater’ with Glenn Ford & Henry Fonda and Fonda mentions a windmill and says ‘we had to tear one of the down, NOT enough wind for two of them’......

ALSO, if I see a bar or restaurant with a ‘boomerang’ theme/name I make it a point to ask

What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?
A stick!.

I usually ‘get a chortle’ BUT also realize the people are working for tips......

[SamAdams76]

If you own a dog, you can still have that stick come back.

[Mears]

“If you own a dog, you can still have that stick come back.”

—

Not in my house. My Shelties would chase the stick,and then stand and look at it waiting for me to come and get it so I could throw it again.

.

[joesbucks]

Interesting. the Nexus pipeline was proposed during the Obama administration. As did acquisition of right of ways and permitting for the Rover pipeline. Mountain Valley had planning meetings for land acquisition in 2015. The Atlantic Coast pipeline was approved in 2013. Looks like MAGA was underway before inauguration day 2017 for a lot of these projects.