Harris County, Texas Remains on Track to Receive $1.6 Billion in Industrial Project Spending in 2007

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). At the beginning of the year, Harris County, Texas was identified as one of the top 20 U.S. counties for industrial project spending in 2007. See related January 25, 2007 news article - Top 20 Industrial Project Spending Counties for 2007. At that time there were 93 major capital and maintenance projects, totaling $1.6 billion at industrial plants in Harris County scheduled to begin construction in 2007.

With almost half of 2007 in the record books, industrial project spending in 2007 is on track with the initial forecast of $1.6 billion in Harris County. However, the number of projects has increased from 93 up to 102. These projects have either begun construction or are scheduled to begin construction in 2007. One of the larger projects, which has already begun construction in Harris County this year, is a $100 million phase 2 expansion of a polysilicon manufacturing plant owned by MEMC in Pasadena, Texas. This project is part of worldwide trend of polysilicon manufacturers to increase capacity due to increasing demand from semiconductor and solar application markets. Polysilicon manufacturers are planning more than $3 billion in capacity expansion projects in the U.S. alone over the next 2-3 years. See related May 10, 2007 news article - U.S. Polysilicon Manufacturers Developing Close to $3 Billion in New Plant Construction.

Click on the image at right to view a chart showing the breakdown of project spending in Harris County by Industry.

The Pharmaceutical & Biotech Industry leads all industries with $485 million planned from five projects. Second is the Chemical Processing Industry, which has the most projects at 36 totaling $328 million in project spending. One of the larger Chemical Processing Industry projects for 2007 in Harris County is a $20 million, CU unit addition for Kaneka Texas Corporation in Pasadena, Texas. This open shop construction project began in March 2007, and is being engineered and constructed by Gray Construction Company (Lexington, Kentucky).

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