T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Belmont County Port Authority Director Larry Merry, left, gives a presentation on the economic future of the area Wednesday at a meeting of the Bethesda-Morristown Rotary Club. A possible ethane cracker plant in the Shadyside area and Belmont County’s industrial parks featured. Rotary member Michael McCormick and others listen.

BETHESDA — The economic future of Belmont County was the topic of discussion during lunch at the Bethesda-Morristown Rotary Club.

Belmont County Port Authority Director Larry Merry spoke while the rotary club broke bread at the at the Bethesda Community Center. The oil and gas industry and the possibility of an ethane cracker plant was the chief topic of Merry’s presentation Wednesday afternoon.

“We’ve been working and trying to prepare the county. One of the biggest things I think that an entity in the community has to do is you have to think out ahead. … When everybody was talking about oil and gas leases, I was thinking about drilling and completion of wells. When we started drilling wells, I was thinking about trying to prepare this community for an event like the cracker, so we didn’t do like we did with our coal. All our coal basically went off somewhere else,” he said.

He displayed a map of the proposed site of an ethane cracker plant that PTT Global Chemical Daelim is considering at Dilles Bottom in Shadyside. Merry said although no final investment decision has been announced, the company has probably invested more than $200 million in the area in terms of evaluation and engineering.

“This is probably 550 acres represented, 500 of it PTT owns now currently. It is something that’s ongoing,” Merry said. He compared this to the Shell ethane cracker plant under construction in Monaca, PA, noting that it is about 300.

“This site that PTT has purchased in Belmont County is quite a bit bigger,” Merry said.

He added that should the proposed plant become a reality, the investment would be in the billions.

“I am very hopeful that by the end of the year, they will have made a final decision,” he said.

Merry also commended the original property owners Roger Lewis and Dennis Hendershot, noting that Lewis was involved in the process of completing the environmental work.

“The Port Authority played a small part in this thing. We’ve been there since day one, but we were just doing our jobs,” he said.

In answer to some questions from Bethesda Police Chief Pete Busack, Merry said he has not heard of any plans to move Ohio 7 in the area of the proposed plant.

He added that should a plant come to the area, the industrial parks in Barnesville could prepare sites for companies that will use the solvents and byproducts for paint, antifreeze and other products.

“We’re always thinking five, 10, 20 years out,” Merry said. “We need to use this resource and not ship it all out in a pipeline somewhere, and process it and gain that investment and that money. … The only way a community can gain income is by creating value, a product of value.”

Merry also presented aerial photographs of the Eastern Ohio Regional Park and the Joint Economic Development District sites in Barnesville, and outlined their expansion during the past several years and the new buildings. He added that a fifth building has been installed in the Eastern Ohio Regional Industrial Park, with another building to be delivered this month.

“In January of this year with the help of the commissioners, we purchased some additional property that wraps around. This was 200 acres, we purchased an additional 140 acres,” Merry said.

“Economic development is done by a whole community and it takes everybody working together to do these things. It’s not easy,” he said. “There’s no industrial park Santa Claus.”

The next rotary club meeting was set for noon on Wednesday at the community center.