In the Ohio River Valley, with the pandemic’s help, the petrochemical boom is on hold

At a marina in Moundsville, West Virginia, Dan Williamson looked out across the Ohio River at a quiet stretch of land on the other side. “There’s a little activity going on,” said Williamson, a spokesman for PTT — an oil and gas company based in Thailand that wants to build an ethane cracker on the far side of the river, in Dilles Bottom, Ohio. “But really we’re kind of in between phases right now.” The plant would turn the region’s plentiful natural gas into plastics. It’s taken years to develop, and a final decision on whether the company would build the plant was due this summer. But then came the pandemic. “It just kind of changed the game for all industries, including this one. And so they have had to put off their announcement of a decision,” Williamson said.