LoginA $650 million steel mill in Ohio that has been shuttered for 34
years will reopen as the the region prepares for a natural gas
drilling boom. The announcement came on the heels of a new report
by TransCanada that its KeystoneXL project will create 20,000 new
jobs.
Vallourec SA’s V&M Star mill is expected to employ 350
workers who will help produce seamless pipes used in natural-gas
hydraulic fracturing, which is also called fracking, according to
Bloomberg Businessweek.
Aubrey K. McClendon, chief executive officer of Chesapeake
Energy Corporation, told the news agency that fracking has the
potential to generate $22 billion in Ohio by 2015.
“This will be the biggest thing to hit the state of Ohio
economically since maybe the plow,” McClendon stressed.
Meanwhile, officials at TransCanada Corporation are hoping a new
report will satisfy critics of its proposed KeystoneXL pipeline
project, a $7 billion, 1,600 mile line that would run from Alberta
to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is predicting
the controversial project will create 13,000 construction another
7,000 manufacturing jobs once it is approved. President
Barack Obama is expected to make a decision on the proposal by the
end of February.