Economy of Southeast Texas

Since Hurricane Rita struck in October, 2005, the economy of Southeast Texas has been showing signs of strengthening.

At the end of 2003, ExxonMobil and Cheniere Energy each rollled out plans for $1 billion Liquified Natural Gas terminals in Sabine Pass. ExxonMobil's plant will be on the Texas side of the Sabine-Neches Waterway just north of Sabine Pass and Cheniere's is planned for the Texas side about 1.5 miles south of Pleasure Island.

Both will employ up to 600 during construction and 60 or so employees at each plant in permanent positions. Both companies are wending their way through the lengthly permitting process.

Sempra Energy Resources unveiled its own plans for a LNG terminal in the area of Sabine Pass just south of the Gulf Intracoastal waterway. The $1 billion million project will mean an addtional 1000 or so construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs with plenty of spill over effects.

• Exxon Mobil Corp Refinery
• Mead Westvaco Corp
• Motiva Enterprises
• Premcor Refining Group
• Du Pont De Nemours Ei & Co
• Bayer
• Helena Laboratories Inc
• ATOFINA
• Exxonmobil Chemical Co
• Southeast Texas Industries
• Huntsman

Motiva has said it is considering doubling the size of its Port Arthur Refinery from 290,000 barrels of oil per day to 600,000. This would be the largest refinery upgrade in the U.S. in the last 30 years. A final announcement on the $3.6 billion project is hoped for in March. The project would require 4,000 construction workers and take approximately 4 years.

Workforce is already in short supply because of the rebuilding from Hurricane Rita. In addition, a lack of housing is compounding the problem. The workforce issue is further compounded by recent announcements by Signal International that it is adding several hundred workers to its yards and Beacon Maritime that is has opened yards in Orange and Port Arthur and is also seeking several hundred workers.

Several ongoing projects, including upgrades at Valero 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. ATOFINA in Beaumont has announced the addition of two units totalling $107 million expected to be in operation in 2005.

Spherion, in Nederland, announced in September, 2003, that it will be adding 900+ positions to its call center to do customer support for Sprint. This continues to add to the build up in call center positions in the area that now total more than 5,000. Other large call centers include West Corporation in Beaumont which peaks at about 2,000 employees, Service Zone in Port Arthur with 600+ employees and the U.S. Bar Coding Facility in Beaumont with 1500+ jobs.

A cyclohexane unit is under construction at Chevron/Phillips. Praxair announced in April, 2003, it will be starting construction on a $40 million hydrogen plant at the Motiva Refinery. The joint venture of Shell Chemcials, BASF and ATOFINA now has its $200 million butadiene facility at the ATOFINA refinery in Port Arthur operational.

The 1,200 megawatt Cottonwood project by Intergen in Deweyville is fully operational and was pressed into full-time service during the blackouts that affected the Northeast in early September 2003.

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.

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 began construction on a co-gen unit to upgrade the refinery's aging electrical system.

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

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

Port Arthur has also seen the completion of a second Super Wal-mart (off Twin City Highway) and the start of construction on a new Target SuperCenter.

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 were full of good economic news.

Go to : Workforce Statistics

The construction of new hotels is spurring a good feeling in the tourism industry. New hotel construction which began for the first time in 15 years in 1998 has continued with three new properties just finished in Port Arthur in 2002, two new properties in the Beaumont area and new motels in Mont Belvieu, Dayton and Anahuac.

Kountze saw the first hotel construction for Hardin County in the 1990's and 2000's with the completion of a 50-unit Quality Inn in 2002. One of the drivers for the new Kountze hotel was the 2002 opening of the new Big Thicket National Preserve Visitors Center which the city took up as an economic development effort and led a funding drive to finance it.

One evidence of a stronger economy 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 were announced.  In 2003, that build up continued with 429 new mult-family dwelling units permited in the metro region -- the most since 1984.

In 2002, the Beaumont/Port Arthur MSA saw the construction of 897 housing units of which 803 were single family. In 2003, the new housing permit number climbed to a 20-year high of 1,472 for the three county area. In 2003, Jefferson County permited 641 new housing units, the second time in the past 10 years it had climbed above 600 units ( in the first half of 2004, the county saw 267 new housing units permitted)

In 2003, Chambers County saw its best housing market in the past 25 years with 417 new units permitted, eclipsing the previous record of 326 set in 2001. And the same year, Orange County had its best year since 1992 with 227 new housing units permitted.

See more housing statistics: Texas A & M Real Estate Center

Job growth improving

 The Beaumont/Port Arthur area lost 6.1% of its manufacturing force from January 2002 to January 2003. That was not atypical for many parts of the state and the nation. However, it 2003, the number of manufacturing jobs stayed level from January to August -- portending a turnaround.

Much of that can be attributed to the comeback for the Friede Goldman rig yards. Those yards had been idled by bankruptcy, but Signal International has several of the yards back in operation and the region is again capitalizing on the strong. offshore industry.

Go to : Baker Hughes Rig Counts.

Texas Economic Indicators  (Comptroller's office) -- a look at the Texas economy from the viewpoint of consumer demand, financial markets, labor etc.

The Federal Reserve 'Beige Book' (see Dallas Region) Commentary on current economic conditions
by theFederal Reserve District

Dallas Fed --"The Southwest Economy" -- The Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana economies are constantly changing. The information and data the Dallas Fed publishes in Southwest Economy can help keep you current with agriculture, banking, energy, high technology, manufacturing and international trade in this region.

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:

Another part of the upturn can be attributed to the Port Arthur Economic Development Corporation, the economic development arm for Port Arthur with a $1.8 million budget from a dedicated sales tax.  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

City or County Summaries

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.

More statistics on Southeast Texas at TxStat.net