West Virginia Stays Aggressive In Bid For Shell Plant

West Vir­ginia isn’t leav­ing any­thing to chance, in its effort to top Penn­syl­va­nia and Ohio for the rights to a Shell ethane cracker.

The nat­ural gas pro­cess­ing plant is expected to cre­ate thou­sands of jobs wher­ever it ends up. West Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Earl Ray Tomblin is in Texas this week, try­ing to woo Shell exec­u­tives. He’ll be able to tell the com­pany a 25-year tax break may be com­ing soon, accord­ing to the Asso­ci­ated Press:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s House of Del­e­gates is sup­port­ing a 25-year tax break aimed at lur­ing a huge new chem­i­cal plant.

The pro­posal from Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin passed to the Sen­ate on Mon­day with one oppos­ing vote.

Tomblin wants to slash prop­erty taxes for any busi­ness that invests at least $2 bil­lion to build a cracker. This would apply to real estate as well as machin­ery, equip­ment and inventory.

Cracker plants con­vert a byprod­uct from Mar­cel­lus shale gas drilling into a widely used chem­i­cal com­pound. Indus­try groups esti­mate one would bring 12,000 jobs to West Virginia.

Ohio Gov­er­nor John Kasich has also trav­eled down to Texas to push for rights to the ethane cracker. Stay­ing true to form, Penn­syl­va­nia Gov­er­nor Tom Corbett’s admin­is­tra­tion has remained mum on its efforts to court Shell.