The CEO of Texas-based Appalachian Resins says he may make a formal announcement by month's end about plans for a $500 million plastics plant not far from Wheeling in Marshall County.

James Cutler says the plan includes a small ethane cracker, a plant that extracts some liquids from wet natural gas to make the chemical feedstock ethylene. 

Another operation would use that to produce plastics used for grocery and garbage bags, and plastics used to make cling wrap.

Cutler says most of the chemical is made along the Gulf Coast and shipped nationwide. He says being closer to the consumers gives his company an advantage.