Community members from Aliquippa raised questions and concerns Thursday about whether its residents will benefit from the economic boom that corporate and government leaders say will come after the construction of Shell’s ethane cracker plant is complete.
At a community meeting, Shell representatives told about 65 people that the company was ramping up its hiring.
“We’re getting prepared to operate. It means pretty much we are hiring a bunch of people,” Jeff Krafve, the asset general manager at Shell, told the crowd gathered within the Aliquippa Jr./Sr. High School. “We hired 100 within the last three weeks. We are now at over 330. We are on our way to 600.”
But as some residents started milling around the informational booths set up, they had questions about what benefits they might experience.