28 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Late Spring 2019 TheCoastalBend.com in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow our region’s energy base in ways that will sustain the long-term growth of the Coastal Bend. Month after month since the export ban was lifted on New Year’s Day 2016, volume has consistently grown, now up to 3.6 million barrels per day in January 2019—Saudi Arabia exports seven million per day, but at this pace of growth, U.S. exports of petrochemical products are projected to exceed imports for the first time since the 1950’s, when Saudi Arabia first got into the oil business. While Eagle Ford Shale is especially significant in its natural gas reserves (50 trillion cubic feet) and its crude oil (3 billion barrels), it still pales in comparison to the Permian Basin’s nearly 30 billion-barrel reserve and 75 trillion cubic feet of gas. Capitalizing on the opportunity to sell into world markets, China being the number one customer, two new pipelines are under construction now, one that will bring up to 600,000 barrels per day from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale, to the Oxy dock in Ingleside, and a second that will bring up to 440,000 barrels per day to new loading facilities in the port’s main basin. As world demand increases, drilling technology advances, and investment in Texas oil and gas grows, the Coastal Bend is set to expand its status as the top exporter in the U.S., now the world’s number one energy pro- ducer. ‘Top world exporter’ is within reach, along with historic economic opportunities that come with it. cause natural gas is inherently expensive to transport compared to liquid fuels, entire industries are dictated by proximity to natural gas supplies. To deliver natural gas via pipeline requires high pressurization that is maintained and monitored by compression stations, which are placed in set intervals along the piping system. The cost of natural gas pipe- lining is reasonable within a city, for example, or in high volume over a couple of hundred miles or so, es- pecially from a production source as rich as Eagle Ford Shale. Unlike crude oil or refined petroleum products, however, it is not cost efficient, nor particularly safe, to pipe natural gas across a continent or an ocean— not as a gas, at least. Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is the chemical solution that converts natural gas into a liquid that is 1/600 as dense as the gas form, making it more efficient to transport via ship between conti- nents, i.e. for world export. Two multi-billion-dollar LNG plants, Cheniere Energy and Occidental, are under construction in San Patricio County, employing thou- sands of semi-skilled and skilled workers, with an av- erage pay of over $25 an hour. The Coastal Bend’s proximity to a plethoric supply of cheap natural gas, existing pipeline and shipping in- frastructure, and a location in the center of the country with the closest, major deepwater port to the newly expanded Panama Canal, has and continues to attract major industrial investments in the region. TPCO is the American branch of the Tianjin Pipe Company and pro- duces industrial piping for the petrochemical industry. The company’s $1.2 billion facility in Gregory repre- sents China’s largest, single industrial investment in the U.S. Gulf Coast Growth Ventures is a partnership between ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Cor- poration (SABIC), the Saudi-owned diversified chemi- cals manufacturer that currently operates fourteen facilities throughout the U.S. The group’s $10 billion ethylene cracker plant will produce the source mate- rial for plastic products of every imaginable variety from its new, 1,300-acre facility between Portland and Taft. Although the project has been the target of mul- tiple challenges based on environmental concerns, it is moving forward and appears inevitable. The ExxonMobil/Saudi plant in Portland is ex- pected to employ as many as 6,000 during its peak construction phase, and will employ a full-time staff of 600, with an average annual salary of about $90,000, when it is operational in a few years. In all, some $50 billion in industrial and manufacturing investments in the Coastal Bend are underway, due primarily to our area’s proximity to cheap natural gas, shipping infra- structure, and low cost of living and doing business. While the Coastal Bend is profiting from billions in investments spurred by natural gas, it’s Texas’ re- cord crude oil production that has placed the Port of Corpus Christi at the top of a list no one could have seen coming a decade ago: number one U.S. exporter of oil and gas—and with a majority share of all U.S. ex- ports, Port leaders should be congratulated for seeing the future before it happened, and jumping on a once- Above—The Port of Corpus Christi and a last view with the 1959 Harbor Bridge, which is being replaced with a $1 billion cable-stay bridge that will be six stories taller. Below—Rendering of the new ExxonMobil/Saudi plastics plant near Portland.