MONACA, Beaver County — The Shell cracker plant coming to Beaver County will not be operational until 2020, but industry leaders say infrastructure will have to be built up for the region to become a thriving center of the petrochemical industry.

Butler County Chamber of Commerce members along with members of the Beaver County and Ellwood City chambers met Tuesday in Beaver County with Louisiana and Texas leaders in industry and economic development who shared their experiences with opening cracker plants.

The conference was called, “Doing Business in the Era of Shell.”

Chester Mroz, executive adviser of Hint Americas, a management and production efficiency company based in Houston, Texas, presented information on how the plant will operate.

Mroz said the work force needed to operate the plant will require a different set of job skills than those who construct it. Plant operators will require knowledge of information technology, chemical engineering and electronics.

Shell has committed $6 billion to build the plant, which will take 6,000 construction workers. Once the plant is operational, 600 full-time employees will be required to run it.

Downstream businesses related to it are expected to bring more jobs to the region.

The plant will produce polyethylene, which can then be manufactured into consumer products, such as trash bags, sealants, food packaging, diapers, tires, antifreeze and paint.

According to Shell, more than 70 percent of North American polyethylene demand is within a 700-mile radius of Pittsburgh.

The plant will be operated through Cloud computing, which is using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage and process plant data.

“The processes are all chemical processes so the operators have to understand how those work and how they're going to control them with software and the computers that are going to be used,” he said.

Mroz said educating a work force with these kinds of skills will be necessary in schools in order for the region to become a center for the petrochemical industry.

From his experience working with the chemical and refining industry in the Gulf Coast region, Mroz said the area grew because the infrastructure was already there.

“It kept building more and more there because they had the road, rail and shipping infrastructure. This is going to have to be rebuilt in the Northeast,” he said.

“One of the key factors in growing the chemical business in the Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio region will be building the necessary infrastructure. That's how it will affect nearby counties.”

Sarita Scheufens, senior vice president, retail market manager for iBERIABANK in southwest Louisiana spoke about the development of Sasol, an international energy and chemical company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2015, Sasol started construction of a $11 billion petrochemical plant within the parish of Calcasieu in southwest Louisiana.

The parish has been concentrating its efforts on building a work force for the future of the area, which currently has 16 chemical plants.

Before the 2011 announcement of the arrival of the new petrochemical plant, Scheufens said young people would leave the area after graduation from high school or college.

“We have really worked hard to increase our availability to our young people to get them in and out of a university in whatever time they need and to be prepared for the work force,” she said. “We have done an excellent job in that area. So much so that the technical college graduates more people than our local university.”

The parish has also seen an increase in population, property values, sales tax revenues and ad valorem tax revenues.

Because most new employees at the plant will most likely be the tech-savvy Millennials, she said the parish has also been working toward creating inviting infrastructure, such as parks, retail complexes and community events.

“We've created an environment that Millennials want to live in. You have to think about that with Millennials. It's not just about a great work environment. It's about a quality lifestyle,” she said.

However, Scheufens warned that with progress comes challenges, such as housing shortages and increased traffic and preparing for both should be a priority for the region.

“You definitely want to invest in your infrastructure,” she said. “This is food for thought and hopefully, will leave some questions about what the area should do next and what you should prepare for.”