Since 2012, Shell has seen a 300-acre site in Monaca that long housed a zinc plant as the right spot to build a petrochemical "cracker" facility. Pennsylvania offered incentives to win the project and the region's communities are watching closely to grab the opportunity, while minimizing any unwanted impacts.
Plants like the one slated for Beaver County process, or "crack" ethane molecules into ethylene, a building block of the chemical industry used in everything from antifreeze to children's diapers.
Shell's cracker could create hundreds of jobs once it's operational, not to mention thousands of construction jobs as it is built. It may also draw in other plants and businesses that want to be near the cracker. A project of this scale also raises environmental concerns.
That's why the Post-Gazette has been covering its progress closely for the past several years and will continue to do so.
This timeline is meant to make it easy on readers to understand the history and stay on top of developments.
First Published: December 15, 2016, 8:02 p.m.
