Jobsohio puts $30M toward site for project

The state’s economic development arm has awarded its largest grant ever for site work for a massive, multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant being considered in eastern Ohio.

The $30 million Jobsohio grant is another in a series of steps being taken to determine whether Thai chemical company PTT Global Chemical America and its South Korean partner, Daelim Industrial Co., should proceed with the project in Belmont County. The company has committed $65 million to this phase, according to Jobsohio.

If the companies go forward, they would build one of the largest economic development projects in state history, one with thousands of construction jobs and probably several hundred permanent jobs once construction is completed.

“Jobsohio’s revitalization grant will support initial site-preparation work, which will begin later this month,” said Matt Englehart, Jobsohio spokesman. “While this is an important and positive step for the project, no final investment decision has been made. Jobsohio and our partners will continue closely collaborating with PTTGC America and Daelim as they work toward a final investment decision.”

The companies said in a statement, “There is not a timetable for that decision at this point. Obviously, both

companies are extremely grateful to Jobsohio for its support.”

Economic development officials announced in 2015 that PTT was considering the site along the Ohio River near Shadyside in Belmont County for the project.

The plant would take ethane, a component of natural gas, and break it down to produce ethylene, which is used in chemical manufacturing. The county is an attractive site because of its proximity to the plentiful natural gas of the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The plant would be built on the site of Firstenergy’s former R.E. Burger power plant, which closed in 2011. Jobsohio previously spent $14 million to help clean up the 168-acre site that PTT bought in 2017.

The company estimated last year that the project would cost $7.5 billion, making it even bigger than a similar plant being built about an hour away in western Pennsylvania by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell for $6 billion.

“The investment by Jobsohio is to improve the site for the benefit of the state,” said Larry Merry, executive director of the Belmont County Port Authority, which controls economic development. If PTT proceeds, the project probably would attract other companies that would use the ethylene to make plastics, Merry said. Even if PTT doesn’t go ahead with the project, the grant will improve the site, he said.

Merry said the community has been on a roller coaster ride since learning of PTT’S interest.

“I’m very hopeful that sometime in 2019, we’ll probably hear something,” Merry said.

He said his emphasis for this project remains job creation.

“I want there to be jobs here for people who choose to live here,” he said.