Petrochemical Industry Dominates $2.1 Billion Nueces County, Texas Industrial Project Activity

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Houston, Beaumont, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge and Mobile are all leading areas for industrial development along the U.S. Gulf Coast, but let’s not forget Nueces County, Texas, and its county seat Corpus Christi. The Port of Corpus Christi is the sixth largest port (in terms of tonnage) in the U.S., handling mostly oil, petrochemicals and agricultural products. A large concentration of refineries and chemical plants currently are evaluating more than $2.1 billion worth of industrial project spending from 41 major projects.

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

The Petroleum Refining Industry commands almost 50% of the planned project activity in Nueces County. Most of that is for major refinery unit additions for companies like CITGO Petroleum Corporation, Flint Hills Resources LP (Wichita, Kansas) and Valero Refining Company, all of which operate large petroleum refineries in Corpus Christi. Flint Hills Resources for example is evaluating 15 maintenance shutdown and capital projects totaling $500 million. In April, Flint Hills began construction of a $20 million upgrade of a delayed coker unit at its Corpus Christi West Refinery. Foster Wheeler USA (Houston, Texas) is providing engineering and procurement for the project, which is scheduled for completion late this year. Industrial Info has been tracking this project since the design phase in early 2002.

Taking advantage of Corpus Christi’s deep vessel marine access and pipeline interconnects, Cheniere Energy is developing a $650 million LNG receiving terminal on Corpus Christi Bay. Site preparation activities began last year, but construction activity was postponed until 2008 while the company concentrates on construction of its Sabine Pass LNG terminal. This represents the largest project currently planned in Nueces County.

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