Sunoco decided that plant wasn't worth fixing. Its successors converted the adjacent oil refinery into a gasworks, though they continued to use the ethylene site to burn waste fuels, for which they were fined $750,000 by Delaware last year. Sunoco's shutdown cut off the key raw material Croda used to help Atlas Point's clients make antifreeze, DuPont crop-seed coatings, and the mixing and separating agents used in processed foods, natural-gas fracking, and other industries, among other ethylene-derived materials. Instead of closing, the company invested $170 million — with $2.5 million from Delaware taxpayers, plus tax abatements — to make ethylene oxide from ethanol, the same simple alcohol that makes you drunk. The job employed 250 temporary contractor workers during its two-year construction, and added 35 permanent workers represented by the United Steelworkers to the 215 working there before the expansion.