Texas is home to 27 petroleum refineries which can process 5.1 million barrels of crude oil per day. The ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown is the second largest oil refinery in the United States. It has capacity of 584,000 barrels per day. Texas refineries produce 29.1 percent of the nation's oil refining capacity. Major Texas petroleum refining employers dominate the Fortune 500 list: ExxonMobil (#2), Phillips66 (#4), Valero Energy (#13), Tesoro (#77), HollyFrontier (#150), and Western Refining (#204). Fortune 500
Houston, which is considered the energy capital of the nation and a world center for virtually every segment of the petroleum industry, is home to more than 3,700 energy-related establishments and a number of Fortune 500 energy companies. It is also the logistic control center for moving most of the nation's petroleum and natural gas. Furthermore, Houston is the Permanent Secretariat of the World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP), a collaboration among 19 energy cities worldwide providing a platform for information exchange, networking and public relations. Greater Houston Partnership
More than Fuel - the Chemicals that Produce American Goods
Chemicals play an important role in our everyday lives. The Texas chemical industry supplies products that are used to make automobiles, pharmaceuticals, computers, grow food and build homes. Most chemical manufacturing companies in Texas convert natural petroleum and mineral resources into thousands of other materials used in other industries to make or grow products. Texas chemical manufacturers produce and process more than 50 percent of the total U.S. chemical production, and approximately 50 percent of the nation's petrochemical production, a subsector of the chemical industry.
The Texas Enterprise Fund Primes the Petroleum Industry
Petroleum is a wise investment, creating thousands of jobs with nearly every new initiative. The Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) makes substantial investments made in Texas companies desiring to expand operations in the state. CITGO Petroleum received a $5 million TEF grant to move its corporate headquarters to Houston and enhance its Corpus Christi high-efficiency refining facility through re-tooling to allow for the production of two new product lines of low sulfur fuels. The refinery employs more than 1,000 workers and has an economic impact on the community of more than $600 million.
The largest single capital investment commitment for a TEF project in Texas is a multi-year refinery expansion by Motiva that began in 2006. Saudi Refining, Inc. (a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco) and Shell Oil Company (an affiliate of the Netherlands' Royal Dutch Shell plc) completed their joint-venture project in May 2012, making the Motiva Enterprises Texas Gulf Coast refinery the largest refinery in the nation. Located in Port Arthur, Texas, the refinery has a diverse workforce of approximately 1,300 full-time employees and more than 500 contractors on site each day.
With a TEF grant of $675,000, TapcoEnpro International broke ground in 2010 on a new manufacturing facility in Baytown, Texas, which is expected to generate an estimated $26 million in capital investment. The new facility builds large vessels for the refining and petrochemical industries, supports the production of large valve products and houses some of the most modern machining and fabrication equipment available in the industry.