Pennsylvania Shell ethylene cracker plant
 Shell ethylene cracker
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| Location | Potter Township, PA |
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| Coordinates | 40°40′8.8926″N 80°20′11.349″W / 40.669136833°N 80.33648583°WCoordinates: 40°40′8.8926″N 80°20′11.349″W / 40.669136833°N 80.33648583°W |
| Products | ethylene |
| Owner(s) | Shell Oil Company |
The Pennsylvania Shell ethylene cracker plant is a proposed chemical plant in Potter Township, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh that will be owned and operated by Shell Oil Company, the American subsidiary of supermajor oil company Royal Dutch Shell. The plant will be located near the interchange of Interstate 376 and Pennsylvania Route 18, expecting to open in the early 2020s.
The site of the proposed plant has had a long history as an industrial site. Both Horsehead Corporation and Koppers had plants on the site of the proposed plant, the latter company unofficially incorporating the area as Kobuta. Before its industrial use, the area had been farmland owned by a local family, which included a private cemetery (albeit with unmarked graves) that would later be discovered after Shell purchased the property for cleanup and would inform living descendants in the area of the skeletal remains.
Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia engaged in a tax competition for the plant. In 2012 Pennsylvania structured a deal requiring Shell to invest at least $1 billion in Pennsylvania and create at least 2,500 construction jobs in exchange for a 25-year tax incentive of $66 million per year and tied to production, reducing Shell's tax by up to 20 per cent. The combined incentive could reach $1.65 billion. Shell announced the Pennsylvania site on March 15, 2012.
Shell began leasing the bulk of the property from Horsehead in 2012, which promptly closed the zinc plant on the site and began cleanup of the site in preparation of potentially opening a cracker plant on the site, which would be used to convert natural gas products into ethylene and then into plastics. Shell had selected the site due to the ongoing Marcellus natural gas trend and the site's prime location within the Marcellus Shale. By 2015, after executing several short-term lease extensions, Shell purchased the property outright from Horsehead, and subsequently purchasing other nearby properties, effectively absorbing all of Kobuta.
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