Texas City industry switches hands, expands in 2013

TEXAS CITY – It was a year of change within the petrochemical industrial base of Texas City as acquisitions and expansions dominated the sector. The year started with Marathon Petroleum taking control of the often-troubled BP Texas City refinery.

Marathon, which already had a smaller refinery in Texas City, acquired the nation’s fifth-largest refinery as part of a $2.5 billion deal that included other BP assets.

Marathon brought in Ray Brooks, an Ohio native who headed the company’s Illinois refinery, to take over the refinery that was renamed Marathon Galveston Bay Refinery. The culture changed seemed to take affect almost immediately.

Under Marathon’s management, reportable injuries went down to every 52 days and of the four injuries that happened in the first six months, none resulted in lost work time, company figures show.

Looking ahead, the company plans to spend about $400 million on safety and infrastructure improvements at the refinery. That includes a 70,000-sf central control room that started construction under BP’s tenure and is expected to be online this year.

Valero and Ashland each had significant expansion projects during the year.

In June, Valero, which operates a refinery in Texas City, debuted $36 million in facilities to house the maintenance department, safety staff, fire department, wellness center and security.

The new facilities totaled 520,650 sf on 11.95 acres.

The expansion and changing oil market put Valero’s Texas City refinery in a solid spot to compete and possibly lead to bigger things for the facility.

Ashland is investing more than $30 million to expand its plant and increase production of its most marketable products, mostly polyvinylpolypyrrolidone — or PVPP — which is used in the creation of drug tablets as well as to prevent haze from forming in beer and wine containers.