AP: Shale gas powering US petrochemical revival

The US petrochemical industry, in trouble just a few years ago, is making a spectacular comeback thanks to the boom in shale gas, shaking up the industry worldwide and spreading some discomfort through Asia and Europe.

"It's pretty simple, there's just so much feedstock that needs to find a home," Chuck Carr, a petrochemical analyst at IHS, said in Texas, the capital of the US industry.

"So everybody's saying: hurry up to build something, because at that natural gas price, it's just pure value."

The surge in gas production has pushed gas prices in the United States down since 2009, while oil prices have doubled since then.

The low price for gas as a fuel is already helping a comeback in US industry -- natural gas sells for one third the price in Europe and one fifth that in Asia.

But that makes it even more a boon for the petrochemical industry, where gas is a core raw material for producing plastics and other basic industrial products.  MORE