Since the beginning, the industry has played a key role in making what frontline workers need right now. Pennsylvania’s prolific natural gas reserves are providing vital feedstock to manufacture sanitizer; personal protective equipment – including gowns, masks, face shields and gloves; and medical equipment.
The industry also produces some of the materials that are key to developing the vaccines that will lead us into a post-pandemic future. One the ingredients in the COVID vaccines – polyethylene glycol – is a petroleum-based compound that is essential to getting the vaccine into the cells themselves in order to thwart the virus. Natural gas also helps to create the materials needed to keep the vaccines refrigerated.