Cheap US Energy Luring Overseas Companies -- Big Story In The Wall Street Journal

The U.S. boom in natural-gas production is luring investment from foreign manufacturers eager to tap a cheap, abundant supply of fuel and feedstocks.

Companies from the U.S. and abroad have invested or are planning to invest billions of dollars through the rest of the decade in plants that would churn out chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, metals and fuel from gas. Many foreign companies, alone or in joint ventures with U.S. partners, are taking advantage of gas that costs a fraction of what it does in Europe or Asia to expand production in the U.S.

Boston Consulting Group estimates that international companies will invest at least $50 billion through the end of the decade on projects that take advantage of low-price natural gas.

And more:

Linde AG, a German gas-and-engineering company, recently said it would spend $200 million to build a new air-separation unit in La Porte, Texas, that would provide synthetic gas for the petrochemical industry. The investment "is directly tied to the price and availability of natural gas," said spokesman Uwe Wolfinger. "Five or seven years ago, this type of investment would have been far more likely elsewhere in the world."

The U.S. gas bonanza, fueled by the widespread adoption of new drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, has already given a boost to domestic manufacturers. When natural-gas prices were high a decade ago—about twice as high as they are today—Dow Chemical Co. invested in new petrochemical facilities in the Middle East, where energy was less expensive. Today, Dow and other energy-intensive firms are investing heavily in the U.S.