< Previous28COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE28COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDEiven the natural beauty and biodiversity of the Coastal Bend area, local residents, students, government agencies and businesses know they must protect it. That’s why sustainable growth is one of the central tenets of The Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation’s mission. “Promoting and recruiting new industry while also promoting and protecting our natural resources is a commitment to the future of the area that we take seriously,” explains the website. Across the region, industries have Students, government and industry work to protect the Coastal Bend region.by SAVANNAH KINGGPROTECTINGtheENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP PHOTOS COURTESY OF TEXAS A&M CORPUS CHRISTIexpressed a commitment to reducing emissions and taking necessary steps to avoid polluting the region’s natural resources. Though not required, local government entities have taken steps to reduce emissions by replacing their fleets with more efficient vehicles, switching to natural gas engines, and improved scheduling and traffic management to prevent commuters from idling during their commute. The Islander Green Team is a student-led environmental group made up of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi students. About 100students have created several campus-wide initiatives including the creation of a garden and compost site, aquaponics project, and rainwater collection tank. In 2018, the team was one of nine recipients of the Coastal Bend Bays Foundation’s Annual Conservation and Environmental Stewardship Award. “Because I was born and raised in Corpus Christi, I see that there are a lot of opportunities for eco-friendly growth in this industrial city,” said Melissa Zamora, who founded the student-led portion of the Islander Green Team in 2016 and is now an employee of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. “That’s a part of why I chose to study environmental science and found the student-led Green Team — to raise environmental awareness from the bottom up.”Not only has the Green Team made waves in its community; it’s also made a significant impact on campus. Since 2016, more than 49,000 pounds — that’s 24.5 tons — of coffee grounds, food and yard waste from the Island University have been composted and used to rejuvenate gardens and landscape areas across the city.“Environmental sustainability is something that we should all strive toward. The Green Team is my way of doing that now,” said current Islander Green Team member Dawid Kala. “It helps me live a more sustainable life. This is our planet; we only get one of them.”The Port of Corpus Christi earned the 2018Texas Environmental Excellence Award (TEEA) in pollution prevention, presented by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The annual awards program honors achievements in environmental preservation and protection and is considered the state’s highest environmental honor. “Environmental stewardship is an effort that we must undertake to be successful, and this prestigious recognition is a culmination of the diligent efforts and willingness of our Port employees and our stakeholder to continually reduce the environmental footprint of our operations,” said Sarah Garza, Port Corpus Christi Director of Environmental Planning and Compliance. “Prioritizing our improvements each year, committing to continually improve, has brought us to this point and will sustain our operations in the future.”Since 1993, the TEEA has honored over 250 successful environmental projects and efforts. The goal of the award program is to encourage others to initiate like-minded projects and reinforce a spirit of environmental stewardship across the state. The port’s commissioners recently approved an environmental policy and identified five key precepts to consider when evaluating new developments and operations: air quality, water quality, soils and sediments, wildlife habitat and environmental sustainability. This environmental policy helped secure the port’s award.“The Port of Corpus Christi is guided by principals,” said TCEQ Chairman Brain Shaw. “They not only set standards for themselves, but also for their partners, setting examples as forward-thinking environmental stewards in the industry and in the community.” COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 2930 COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDEPORT OF CORPUS CHRISTImerica’s fourth-busiest port is about to be getting even busier, thanks to recent tenant expansions and the possibility of adding another large user.The Port of Corpus Christi wrapped up its busiest year on record by handling 106.2 million tons of cargo in 2018, exceeding its 2017 performance by 3.8 million tons and topping its 2015 record-setting year by 2.8 million tons.The budget projection for 2019 is that the port will handle 112.5 million tons during the new fiscal year, which would mean establishing yet another single-year record.Much of the increased traffic is due to the huge energy deposits discovered in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale in West Texas — exploration and extraction plays that are having big impacts both upstream and downstream.In the oil and gas sector, at least three large tenants at the Port of Corpus Christi announced sizable expansion projects in the past year:• Pin Oak Terminals announced it would expand its footprint at the port and signed an exclusive agreement for Suezmax tankers at Oil Dock 14 with the port. The 10-year agreement includes extension options for an additional decade. In addition to Suezmax vessels, the expansion would enable Pin Oak to load and unload Aframax, Panamax and other smaller vessels and barges. The agreement follows the start of construction on nine Pin Oak Aby RON STARNERThe Port of Corpus Christi rises to the fourth-busiest in the U.S. and sets new cargo records.Port of Corpus ChristiPHOTO COURTESY OF PORT OF CORPUS CHRISTICOASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 31pipelines under the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, eight of which will connect to Public Oil Dock 14. • Moda Midstream announced an expansion of its Ingleside Energy Center to enable loading of very large crude carriers. Moda is developing these upgrades to provide existing and new customers the ability to load VLCCs at rates of up to 80,000 barrels per hour at the Port of Corpus Christi. The project includes construction of crude oil storage tanks capable of holding 10 million barrels of crude.• One of the port’s largest customers, Buckeye is expanding with a new crude oil export terminal at Ingleside with VLCC loading berths. This is the South Texas Gateway Terminal project.In addition to these expansions, the port is actively working with prospects interested in building new facilities on site. The biggest fish out there right now is the $1.8-billion Steel Dynamics project, which is considering a port site in San Patricio County. Based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Steel Dynamics is scanning the southwestern U.S. for land on which it can build an electric-arc-furnace flat-roll steel mill capable of producing 3 million tons of steel per year. The plant is expected to create up to 500 jobs that pay an average annual salary of $76,000. Company officials have said they hope to begin building the plant in 2020 and commence operations in the latter half of 2021.Texas is competing with multiple states to land this deal, with the Port of Corpus Christi considered the preferred site in the Lone Star State.To handle all this increased business, the port is not standing pat. “The Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project will widen and deepen the ship channel for the safe passage of deep-draft vessels and increased Permian Basin to Corpus Christi crude oil pipeline capacity,” says Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi. “The widening and deepening of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel is a mathematical certainty as the majority of incremental U.S. energy production is coming to Corpus Christi and ultimately to the global markets.”With more port business comes more jobs for the Coastal Bend. According to an economic impact study done for the port by Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, 74,802 full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs in the Corpus Christi region are related to port-generated activities. That translates to 36 percent of the metro area’s employment base. Statewide, the port generates 91,082 FTE jobs. “The widening and deepening of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel is a mathematical certainty as the majority of incremental U.S. energy production is coming to Corpus Christi and ultimately to the global markets.” — Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi32 COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDEENERGY & PETROCHEMICALSby ADAM BRUNSt’s about 470 miles from the booming Permian Basin in western Texas to the Coastal Bend along the Gulf of Mexico. The linchpin infrastructure in Corpus Christi, however, means thousands of miles and billions of dollars’ worth of exported oil and gas from that basin and others in the years to come.Multiple natural gas liquids (NGL) and oil pipelines are making their way toward Corpus Christi like those moving lines on maps in Indiana Jones movies. The adventures ahead from this dramatic increase in raw materials IM&G Chemicals building sitePHOTO BY HEATHER OVERMANCOASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 33capacity mean a boom in construction, jobs, infrastructure and trade.EPIC Midstream Holdings’ crude oil pipeline and NGL pipeline will run side by side across most of Texas as they transport crude and NGL for delivery into the Corpus Christi market from such firms as Noble Energy Inc., Apache Corporation, Diamondback Energy and others. EPIC is even using the same construction crews on both. And that sort of synergy carries through all the way to the coast — EPIC, after all, stands for Eagle Ford, Permian, Ingleside, Corpus Christi.In December 2018, the Port of Corpus Christi Authority announced several milestones in the development of the crude oil export terminal on Harbor Island. Led by Lone Star Ports, it will be the first U.S. onshore export terminal servicing fully-laden Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), “furthering the Port’s position as a global crude oil export hub,” said the Port Authority. Lone Star Ports’ agreements with EPIC and with Harvest Midstream will provide connectivity to more than 1 million barrels per day (mmbbls/d) of crude oil from the Permian and Eagle Ford basins.More than 60 percent of U.S. crude exports move through the Port of Corpus Christi — a portion that only looks set to increase.“Our partnership with the Carlyle Group is designed to assure global energy markets that requisite More than 60% of U.S. crude exports move through the Port of Corpus Christi.34 COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDEinfrastructure will be in place and ready to support the growing exports of American crude oil,” said Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi. “We are pleased with the progress The Carlyle Group has achieved thus far in reaching full project commercialization.” EXPORTING MORE THAN OIL & GAS Lone Star Ports is a joint venture between The Carlyle Group and The Berry Group, the largest private employer in the Corpus Christi area through its numerous investments and operations in the oil and gas industry and its subsidiary Bay Ltd., a Corpus Christi-headquartered infrastructure, construction, and fabrication contractor for the oil and gas sector that employs more than 3,200 craftspeople and supervisors. The array of projects Bay is involved in means the energy-related exports from Corpus Christi go well beyond oil and gas.In February 2019, Bay and its subcontractors completed the “Leviathan” Offshore Living Quarters project, a platform weighing more than 2200 tons that headed immediately to Israel, home of Leviathan, one of the largest natural gas discoveries in the world. “Leviathan will make a huge contribution to Israel for decades,” Bay announced, “putting billions into the state treasury for education, health, and welfare; make it possible to close down the coal-fired power plants, ensuring cleaner air for the coming generations, and serve as a critical tool through exporting gas to Egypt, Jordan, and Europe.”The list of projects in the region — headed by the huge Gulf Coast Growth Ventures JV between ExxonMobil and SABIC (see p. 37) — keeps growing. Among the energy and petrochemicals projects:• PERMICO Midstream Partners: three 100,000 barrel/day PHOTO COURTESY VISIT CORPUS CHRISTIfractionators; $550 million; 52 jobs• EPIC Y-Grade: a new fractionator at the end of a 600-mile pipeline starting in New Mexico; $200 million; 10 jobs• Plains Terminals: $200-million condensate storage and dock facility• Trafigura, Plains Marketing, and Martin Midstream: over $1 billion in storage tanks• TexStar: $100-million gas fractionation plant• Corpus Christi Polymers LLC: acquisition from M&G USA of the integrated PTA-PET plant currently under construction• Moda Midstream: $70-million propane export facility as well as a new ethylene facility at the former Naval Station Ingleside site recently acquired from the Port of Corpus Christi; $1.3 billion; 140 jobs• LyondellBasell: $500-million ethylene production facility; 300 employees and contractors typically on site, spending almost $43 million annually with local vendors• Magellan Midstream’s new condensate splitter plant; $400 million; 110 jobs resulting in annual payroll of $7.8 million. The project also includes construction of more than 1 million barrels of storage, dock improvements and two additional truck rack bays at Magellan’s terminal, as well as pipeline connectivity between Magellan’s terminal and Trafigura AG’s nearby facility. 36 COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDEANOTHER FIRSTDecember was full of milestones for Corpus Christi, as in addition to the oil paipeline momentum, Cheniere Energy announced that the first commissioning cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) had loaded and departed from its Corpus Christi liquefaction facility, marking the first export of LNG from the state and from a greenfield liquefaction facility in the lower 48 states. “Exporting the first commissioning cargo of LNG from Texas demonstrates Cheniere’s ability to deliver projects safely and ahead of schedule, including the first greenfield LNG export facility in the lower 48 states,” said Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s president and CEO.The Corpus Christi liquefaction facility consists of three large-scale LNG production units (trains) and supporting infrastructure, with an additional seven smaller trains proposed. Cheniere too benefits from the Coastal Bend energy circulatory system, serving a state that as recently as 2015 produced 27 percent of total U.S. marketed gas production. “The Cheniere Corpus Christi 23-mile, 48-inch pipeline connects the Corpus Christi LNG plant to several interstate and intrastate pipelines,” Cheniere says, “giving the facility access to robust gas resources in Texas and the Gulf Coast.”Cheniere’s overall $14.5-billion project is “by far the largest project in the region at this time,” notes the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation. Upon completion, the facility will create 250-plus new full-time jobs. COASTAL BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 37GULF COAST GROWTH VENTUREShe world’s largest ethane cracker continues to move closer to fruition, thanks to a flurry of work taking place on a 1,300-acre site in Gregory in San Patricio County, Texas.When all is said and done, a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) will build a $7 billion petrochemical manufacturing complex that will create over 600 permanent high-wage jobs in the Coastal Bend region of Corpus Christi.The massive project is known as Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, and it has been years in the making. The numbers alone are staggering:• Over 6,000 construction jobs will be created during the peak building phase.• Of the 150-plus operators who have been hired, over 75 percent are local.• Another 3,500 indirect jobs are being generated by the project.• More than $162 million has been spent on local vendors and contractors.• More than $250 million in taxes will go to local governments during the first five years of operations.• 40 scholarships have been awarded already to Del Mar College process technology students, and more are coming.• $1.5 million has been contributed to Del Mar College to equip the new hands-on Gulf Coast Growth Ventures Process Technology Lab in the new Workforce Development Center.The real benefit, however, can be seen TExxonMobil-SABIC joint venture clears land, paves way for $7-billion petrochemical plant.FullSpeed Aheadby RON STARNERAerial rendering of Gulf Coast Growth Ventures siteIMAGE COURTESY OF GULF COAST GROWTH VENTURESNext >