MORGANTOWN — In recent weeks, various state and federal officials have proclaimed the promise of an Appalachian Storage Hub for natural gas liquids somewhere in the West Virginia-Ohio-Pennsylvania triangle.
Brain Anderson, director of WVU’s Energy Institute, picked up on that theme during the Oct. 4 West Virginia Energy Expo at Mylan Park.
Realizing that hub, he said, is one of the goals of West Virginia Forward: a collaboration between WVU, the state Department of Commerce and Marshall University to identify short-term, larger-scale projects that will boost West Virginia’s economic development efforts.
The region has enough ethane to support five cracker plants, he said, which in turn would draw various client companies that serve the plants or use the product to make consumer goods.
Spurring the growth of the plastics industry here, he said, could generate 420,000 new jobs.
