Univ Chicago, Princeton & MIT Study: Fracking Benefits Everyone
A new study by researchers at the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) finds that the benefits of fracking outweigh the costs. You read that right. Three big lefty schools have released a study saying fracking benefits everyone. “The Local Economic and Welfare Consequences of Hydraulic Fracturing” (full copy below) looked at nine different shale basins. The authors say fracking activity yields $1,300 to $1,900 per year on average to each household in those basins. That’s a $64 billion yearly benefit–from fracking. So says the libs. Fracking benefits include, “a 7 percent increase in average income, driven by rises in wages and royalty payments, a 10 percent increase in employment, and a 6 percent increase in housing prices.” It is the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind…
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New research from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals a couple of astonishing facts: From 2012-2014, hydraulic fracturing was responsible for creating $3.5 trillion worth of new wealth. We can’t even get our brains around that number! Another fact: From 2012-2014, fracking create 4.6 million new jobs. Although we’ve experienced a big downturn since 2014, can you imagine how the fracking industry will come back under President Trump? Happy day are here again! More from the latest research report by NBER, titled “Fracking, Drilling, and Asset Pricing: Estimating the Economic Benefits of the Shale Revolution”…
The London School of Economics recently released a research study that prominently features the Marcellus/Utica. In “On the Comparative Advantage of U.S. Manufacturing: Evidence from the Shale Gas Revolution” (full copy below), the authors find America’s shale revolution is revitalizing American manufacturing. If we could vastly simplify the research in just a few words, it is this: While we have enough shale gas to export plenty of it, exporting it is not as economic as exporting oil due to the elaborate processes to liquefy and regassify natural gas–therefore a lot of the gas stays right here at home, making the U.S. one of (if not the) cheapest places on the planet to establish manufacturing plants, especially for manufacturers that use natural gas and NGLs (natural gas liquids). Therefore, manufacturing, especially in the petrochemical sector, is ramping back up in the U.S. The authors cite a study that says for every two jobs created by the fracking industry, another one job is created in the manufacturing sector. The paper also concludes that the shale revolution saved Obama’s bacon by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Without shale drilling we would not have recovered as quickly as we did from the economic near-collapse of 2007/2008. Here’s a summary of the research, followed by a full copy of the published paper…
On Monday MDN reported that the future site for an ethane cracker in Belmont County, OH is now cleared and ready for construction to begin (see 
In March 2015, Dominion–a huge natural gas and electric utility as well as a midstream company–announced plans to build the State of Virginia’s (indeed the country’s) largest natural gas powered electric generating plant, in Greensville County, VA (see 
Earlier this week MDN reported that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf helped kill a plan by Philadelphia Energy Solutions to expand its shale oil refinery in Philly by denying a lease on 200 acres at the Southport Marine site (see 
Some of the first businesses that will profit from the mighty Shell ethane cracker being built in Beaver County, PA will be small, local businesses. Restaurants, banquet halls, hotels, drug stores, real estate…the list goes on. But even small businesses that want a piece of the Shell cracker plant action don’t automatically have smooth sailing. Trying to get Shell to promote a business to its workers is hard work. Businesses report talking to Shell and being told that the company won’t help them by promoting them to cracker plant workers (a bit un-neighborly if you ask us). But that’s the life of an entrepreneur. You encounter brick wall after brick wall and you find a way to go through it, or over it, or around it, or under it. That’s what several small businesses in Beaver County are doing with Shell…
Lack of pipelines for natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) in the Northeast has very real economic and financial consequences. Yesterday the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce held a program titled “Fueling A Downstream Economy” in downtown Philly. One of the speakers was from petrochemical giant Braskem America Inc. If the name looks familiar, it should. Braskem and their Brazilian parent company Odebrecht are still considering building an ethane cracker plant in West Virginia (see 
Question: How can your business take advantage of the development of a petrochemical industry in your backyard? That was the question and premise behind a new white paper/report from the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center. The white paper, titled “Shell Petrochemical Complex (“Cracker”) Project Overview – The First Step in Establishing a Regional Petrochemical Sector” (full copy below) provides an excellent overview of the coming ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA–with details for how and who can benefit from it. The paper is mainly aimed at manufacturers that will be able to leverage the output from the plant–but there’s plenty of other great information in this paper to inspire and get your creative business juices flowing. Take time to download and read it. The future of your business may depend on it!…
In June, Shell announced a final investment decision (FID) to move forward with building a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant in Pennsylvania (see 
A delegation from the China Petroleum and Petrochemical Energy Institute (CPPEI) recently visited Clearfield County, PA. The reason for the visit was to scout out potential locations and business opportunities related to PA’s abundant supplies of cheap Marcellus Shale gas. Seven Chinese entrepreneurs came representing companies in the petrochemical/energy industries. The Clearfield economic development agency, called Clearly Ahead Development, coordinated the visit. It was the second such visit in the past year. It certainly couldn’t hurt have some of our money, spent in huge volumes on Chinese imports, come back to the U.S….