We hear a lot on the news about the terrible state of the economy. I guess we (in this area) decided to sit this one out...
I attended a meeting last Wednesday with some of the representatives and community stakeholders. It was regarding anticipated growth in the next 2-10 years. I found it very enlightening.
Several industry representatives gave presentations about what their plans are for growth over the next little while. Exxon, ConocoPhilips, Enterprise, and several others are looking to expand their stake in the petrochemical industry. All of this is focused on our area. It is anticipated that there will be an increase in the next couple of years (and lasting for 2-3 years) of over 20,000 jobs just in industry. The projections for support and ancillary jobs created by these efforts likewise shows dramatic increases in the job market. All of which is very good for the economy of the region.
This (it was explained to me) is due in large part to the relatively low price of natural gas. Plants are needed to separate out the various parts of the y-grade (what comes out of the ground) natural gas from the constituent and valuable parts. Of particular interest to me was the dehydrogenation processes that will be installed. This takes hydrogen out of some of the other gasses and makes them available for use in creating plastics. Yeah - I don't understand it much, but it's a very interesting process.
The (relatively) cheap and abundant natural gas is, in turn, being promoted and supplied by the relatively new technology of hydraulic fracturing (sometimes called fracking) of the rock where the y-grade natural gas is stored. This is the process where they drill a well - or use an existing well - get to an area where the gas is, and send hydraulic fracturing fluids down into the well at great pressure. This breaks up the rocks which trap the natural gas inside, freeing up vast quantities of natural gas for use in the industry. There is an extensive series of pipelines throughout North America which supplies this natural gas to plants in our area. What makes Mont Belvieu unique is the salt dome, where natural gas, propane, and other NGLs can be stored indefinitely and safely underground. Someone once told me that if all of the NGL stored in the Mont Belvieu salt dome was put in above ground containers, it would stretch from here to Los Angeles.
The pipelines bring in the raw, unseparated y-grade material. This gets processed through almost completely automatic facilities called fractionators (not to be confused with the fracking or fracturing mentioned above). Fractionation separates out the various gasses that make up the y-grade natural gas - butane, propane, octane, etc. All of this is very useful for heating homes, powering electric plants, and many other uses. But the expansion that is of particular interest to me is in the plastics area. We already have a couple of large plastics facilities in the area (Bayer and Exxon). There are currently proposed (or being looked at, anyway) expansion of the existing Exxon plastics plant in Mont Belvieu. The proximity to the storage units and all that is available at hand - including the extensive network of pipelines - is a huge attraction to future expansion in this area.
What that means for us is that we are looking to grow our tax base AND our residential base. People will come here to live and work. Their children will need to go to school. They will travel our roads and shop in our stores. They will leave an indelible mark - even if their jobs are temporary, they will leave a legacy of improvement and investment that will last for decades.
So stay tuned! This is a dramatic and interesting time, one in which we will certainly see some benefit as well as some difficulty.
(PS - for a very good series on NGLs and their importance to Mont Belvieu, please see the following:
http://www.rbnenergy.com/can-mont-belvieu-handle-the-ngl-supply-surge-part-I and related posts. I highly recommend it.)
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