When most people think about manufacturing in the United States, industrial towns in the Midwest like Gary, Indiana, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Youngstown, Ohio might come to mind.

But today there’s a manufacturing renaissance happening along America’s Gulf Coast, where the construction of manufacturing plants is creating thousands of well-paid, long-term jobs and expanding the region’s economy. At the heart of this renaissance are shale drilling innovations that have unlocked vast reserves of domestic natural gas, which serves as the feedstock powering the Gulf Coast’s next-generation manufacturing plants.

In Baytown, a Gulf Coast city east of Houston, ExxonMobil is building a multibillion-dollar ethane cracker unit. In nearby Mont Belvieu, the company is constructing a polyethylene facility. Combined, the two plants will help meet rising demand for plastics in the U.S. and abroad. In Louisiana, ExxonMobil will also embark on a number of other projects at its petrochemical complex in Baton Rouge.

In total, that’s 11 ExxonMobil manufacturing projects that will help to create over 45,000 jobs. These jobs, in turn, will open up many more opportunities across the Gulf Coast region.

Want to learn more about Gulf Coast Growth? Check out these stories:

• Baytown, Texas – The home of energy
• Take their word for it
• Baytown’s feedstock for growth is its people
• When big investment means local opportunity for a small business
• Tech minds: Like two of a kind
• Blake Bogie: Trading in a police badge for a hard hat
• A wonderful problem to have

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