In later versions, the plugin has changed name to:
apply plugin: 'com.android.library'
And as already mentioned by some of the other answers, you need the gradle tools in order to use it. Using 3.0.1, you have to use the google repo, not mavenCentral or jcenter:
buildscript {
repositories {
...
//In IntelliJ or older versions of Android Studio
//maven {
// url 'https://maven.google.com'
//}
google()//in newer versions of Android Studio
}
dependencies {
classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.0.1'
}
}