Economy of Southeast Texas

The economy of Southeast Texas has been dampened by the effects of 9/11 and the war with Iraq which have hampered the markets that our industries sell to, There have been several shut downs and layoffs, but the underlying economy has held up well compared with dull performances in the middle of the 1990's  

Several ongoing projects including upgrades at Premcor and Chevron/Phillips are adding to the area's capabilities. Air Products completed a $100 million hydrogen plant at the Premcor refinery and construction is ongoing on the $107 million hydrotreater project.

A cyclohexane unit is under construction at Chevron/Phillips. Praxair announced in April it will be starting a $40 million hydrogen plant at the Motiva Refinery. The joint venture of Shell Chemcials, BASF and ATOFINA is working on the $200 million butadiene facility at the ATOFINA refinery in Port Arthur.

Three mega projects over the 1999-2002 time era have had significant impact on the region.

In  August, 1999  Premcor (Clark Refining Company) announced a $775 million project in Port Arthur that rivals an $1 billion project cross town announced by BASF/Fina and which had an offiical dedication in October 1999.   Both projects brought nearly 2,000 construction workers into Port Arthur. The Premcor project was completed near the beginning of 2001 and the BASF project was completed and commissioned in August and September of 2001. The 1,200 megawatt Cottonwood project by Intergen is nearing the end of constructionn Deweyville.

Goodyear completed an upgrade of $143 million to its Beaumont facility.

Conoco Global Power has completed its 420 megawatt cogen facility at Dupont Orange, a $1.75 billion gasification plant was announced for Port Arthur, and the cogen included in the BASF project is operating.. Calpine is completing a 700 megawatt plant for Bayer Baytown. Exxon/Mobil has recently received tax abatement approval from the county for a co-gen unit to upgrade the refineries aging electrical system.

Three areas that have growth spurts especially worth mentioning have been:

• the Highway 69 area in Port Arthur lead by the Super Walmart and Lowes stores.
• the Dowlen Road area where Barnes and Noble, Hobby Lobby and a dozen other national chains are crowding around the Super Walmart there.
• the I-10 area around the State Highwy 146 exit in Mont Belvieu which has seen numerous new dealership built.

Go to : Workforce Statistics

The Southeast Texas economy took a major hit in the oil crisis of the mid 80's and was never able to recover until now.   There was a rash of major projects at the beginning of the 90's but the economy flattened out in 1993, 1994 and 1995.   However, 1996 started slow but showed signs of improvement and 1997 to 2001 have been full of good economic news.

One evidence of this is the construction of new apartments in large numbers for the first time.  Apartments were nearly 1/3 of all the new dwelling units constructed in the early 1980's but dropped to nearly zero for almost 15 years.  In 1998, $35 million in new apartment projects has been announced. 

Also the construction of new hotels is spurring a good feeling.  New hotel construction begun for the first time in 15 years in 1998 has continued with three new properties just finished in Port Arthur.

New and Expanding Businesses in Beaumont (City of Beaumont Site)

Employment by Economic Sector:  (by County)

In the 9-county region there have been  7,453 jobs created from June 1997 to June 1998 and 9,593 jobs created in a two-year span.  There were 224,489 jobs in Southeast Texas in June of 1996.  By June of 1998 that number had increase to 234,082. 
That rate has been steadily declining over the past two years, but took a sharp jump during the current summer from 6.7% to 8.6% for the region.  The Beaumont/Port Arthur MSA rate jumped from 6.6%  to 8.3%  from May to June.  For the most part this is typical.   

Texas Economic Indicators  (Comptroller's office)

The Federal Reserve 'Beige Book' (see Dallas Region)

Dallas Fed --"The Southwest Economy"

Bureau of Economic Analysis

Regional Accounts Data
Local Area Personal Income

CA05 Personal income by major
source and earnings by industry:

CA30 Regional economic profiles:

Jefferson County added 1,000 jobs from January 2000 to January 2001 but was down 1,400 from its January 1999 figures. Much of that is attributable to a slow restart of the offshore industry in the area. Orange County was down 300 jobs during that 2000-2001 span but off only 500 from its January 1999 figures. Hardin County was nearly level from 2000 to 2001 and but it, too, was off 500 jobs from January of 1999.

Liberty and Chambers Counties, which more closely track the Houston metro area were level from 1999 to 2000 and together saw a moderate 900-job growth last year

Jasper County saw a 500-job loss from 1999 to 2000 and eroded by another 150 jobs from 2000 to 2001 but has seen a slow upward trend since then. Tyler County has been essentially level with a 100-job growth the from January 1999 to January 2001. Newton County saw a significant 250-job drop from January 1999 to January 2001, but the numbers should be climbing in 2001 because of the giant Cottonwood Energy Project in Deweyville.

Most of the fuel of the area economy is in Port Arthur, two mega-projects have fueled job growth.  In fact, most of the manufacturing job growth in the area has been in Port Arthur.  Horizon Offshore opened a facility on Pleasure Islet to service offshore work in the Western Gulf.  Horizon would use the Port Arthur site as a place for crews to depart for offshore projects that are closer to Port Arthur. They employ 200 to 300 people offshore jobs during busy construction periods and have recently announced an expansion that will include a pipe spooling facility. Chevron has been a large construction employer with its large projects as has Huntsman.  But the $800 million Fina/BASF mega projects (hydrocracker) and the $775 million Premcor refining project have been the biggest boost to the economy. 

Part of the upturn can be attributed to the Port Arthur Economic Development Corporation, a new conomic development arm for Port Arthur with a $1.8 million budget from a dedicated sales tax.  The EDC has dozens of projects in the works including two recently signed deals that will bring back office jobs from TDI and the Sisters of Charity to the region.  Several other communities mostly in Hardin County have signed on with their own 1/2 cent sales tax but the amounts are much smaller.  A notable exception is the City of Nederland with a $700,000 budget.  That EDC, armed with a newly  completed strategic plan has a handful of project in the works or recently completed. 

All three of the 3 deepwater ports in Southeast Texas have done major improvements.  The Port of Port Arthur has completed its expansion from 2 berths to 5 berths with accompanying transit shed.   The Port of Beaumont completed the first phase of its improvements to its grain elevator and has developed a terminal on the Orange County side of the Neches River.  The Port of Orange has completed dredging the slip at its Alabama Street wharf that will allow it to service more ships and capture more of the ship mooring market. 

Sales Tax Receipts 

  In the last three months of available figures on sales tax collections, Beaumont is up 8.0%, 7.3% and 13.2 % respectively.   Nederland saw a 26% increase in August and a 23% increase in July.  Port Arthur's sales tax figures have been fairly flat with only a 1.9% increase for the year. 

In the Golden Triangle in general,  the average monthly sales tax collection has shot up from about $2.2 million in 1993 to nearly $2.9 million. 

Click here for current sales tax allocations to cities

Click here for current sales tax allocations to counties

Jefferson County and Orange County populations have increased  only 5.4% and 5.5% since 1990.  But the outlying counties are picking up the slack with Hardin County gaining  16.3%. 

The two fastest growing counties in the region are Liberty County with 33.3% growth and Tyler County with 25.4% growth since 1990   Tyler County can expect even further growth with the U.S. 69 widening project that is expected to be completed in 10 years.  This project will open the west side of Hardin County and Tyler County to quicker access to the Beaumont/Port Arthur area.  In addition, a new maximum security prison in Woodville has added several hundred 300 permanent jobs.  Liberty County continues to grow because of its reputation as close to Houston with good quality of life.

From 1997 to 1999 a dozen  new restaurants were built in the area in the area. That has continued with Johnny Carinos and several other new restaurants in the Beaumont area   Some of that is in response to the steady traffic from Houston and San Antonio to the casinos in Louisiana.  Some of the new restaurants: 

• Cheddar's Casual Café, Bmt 
• Cracker Barrel, Bmt 
• IHOP - Beaumont 
• IHOP - Port Arthur 
• Jack In the Box - Orange 
• Joe's Crab Shack - Bmt 
• Luby's Cafeteria - Orange 
• Mazzio's Pizza-Vidor 
• Pappasitos - Bmt 
• Primos - Bmt 
• Schlotzsky's Deli - Bmt 
• Tamale Company - PA 
• Waffle House, Inc. - Bmt 
• Willy Ray's Bar-BQ - PA
• Windmill -- Dayton

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Copyright 1997 Partnership of Southeast Texas,
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Cities covered: Beaumont, Port Arthur, Jasper Newton, Woodville, Kirbyville, Buna, Silsbee,  Kountze, Sour Lake, Lumberton, Nederland, Port Neches, Groves, Winnie, Anahuac, Crystal Beach, Gilchrist, Liberty, Dayton, Cleveland, Raywood, Orange, West Orange, Bridge City, Pinehurst, Mauriceville, Sabine Pass, Vidor