CEO arrest puts West Virginia cracker plant at risk

Braskem/Odebrecht, two Brazilian companies, are looking at a site near Parkersburg, W.Va., for multi-billion dollar cracker plants to turn ethane from the Utica Shale into ethylene, a key ingredient for making plastics.

But that that proposal has run into a problem.

Marcelo Odebrecht, president and CEO of Odebrecht SA, was arrested for being part of a plan that stole “billions of dollars” from Brazil’s state-run Petrobras oil company. His arrest raises questions about the viability of the proposed ethane cracker project in Wood County's Washington, West Virginia.

Cracker plants create hundreds of construction jobs, create permanent jobs and attract chemical plants and other companies to locate nearby.

 

Ethane from the Utica and Marcellus shales is piped to the Gulf Coast for processing. That material is returned to Northeast Ohio, active in plastics and polyethylene manufacturing, as ethylene used to make those products.