Great announcement for Ohio, who lost the much larger $10 billion Shell Cracker plant to Pennsylvania. You will see more of these in the northeast and gulf coast over the next 20 years.
The other boost is that this will aid a return of the injection molding industry (and other plastics) to the region, which dominated that industry in the 1990s.
Lower natural gas prices have been a huge boost to glass manufacturing already and has enabled them to complete globally with anyone, including the Chinese.
U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s, and that’s a very big deal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3305686/posts
JUNE 26, 201
“Made in the U.S.A” is becoming more affordable. The reason? Fracking.
You don’t need to a Nobel Prize in economics to know that the fracking revolution has been good for the U.S. What’s not so well known is just how competitive cheap oil and gas has made American manufacturing. BCG, the Boston consultancy, estimates the average cost to manufacture goods in the U.S. is now only 5% higher than in China and is actually 10% to 20% lower than in major European economies. Even more striking: BCG projects that by 2018 it will be 2% to 3% cheaper to make stuff here than in China.
If this keeps up, the crackers will be taking over Ohio AND Pennsylvania. That’s 38 potential electoral votes to flip!