ALL CLUB DINNER

Michael Mustian, a Louisiana native, began his carrier with ExxonMobil in 2005 and has since become the Complex Manager overseeing the Beaumont refinery and chemical plant which became one complex in 2023. Mustian said the combining of the refinery and the chemical plant allows them to better optimize their resources and make decisions at one complex leadership team level allowing them to move faster and make better decisions and drive profit for shareholders.

In 1902 with the support from Standard Oil, ExxonMobil began construction of the refinery. The refinery officially opened in May 1903 as the third largest refinery in the USA. Today, ExxonMobil operations generate one out of seven jobs in the Beaumont area and pay more than $50 million in local taxes. They have nearly six hundred Lamar University and Lamar Institute of Technology (LIT) graduates supporting Beaumont operations.

ExxonMobil in Beaumont has a total of four manufacturing plants. The refinery and chemical plant employ a total of 1,600 employees, the lube plant a total of two hundred employees and together spans 2,400 acres near downtown Beaumont and Lamar. The polyethylene plant employs 250 employees and spans three hundred acres off Highway 90.

They are committed to safe and sustainable operations. In 2022 they earned AFPM Distinguished Safety Award for the chemical plant with their record for safe performance and innovation around safe performance. The refinery has won EPA Energy Star for three years in a row and are the only refinery in the ExxonMobil community. They have accomplished these environmental targets by investing over $2 billion, reduced 70% of VOC and 95% SO2 reduction, along with attainment of all key pollutants.

ExxonMobil Beaumont is now the second largest refinery in the United States after its Beaumont Refinery Expansion Project (locally known as BLADE) expanded light crude refining capacity by 65% or 250K barrels per day. BLADE is the third crude unit within the refinery’s footprint and is the largest expansion in the US in the past 10 years. BLADE hired nearly 1,700 contractors at the peak of its construction and spent $500M on local labor, subcontractors, and suppliers to support the project.

Mustain stated that ExxonMobil produces more than 2 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel annually which breaks down to 340,000 gas tanks filled and 25 million diesel miles driven daily. They produce enough fuel for the average size jet to complete 60 trips around the Earth daily. There are 400 billion miles driven on Mobil1 annually and Beaumont is the largest manufacturer in the world and responsible for 70% of global production of Mobil1. The chemical plant produces the building blocks that go to the polyethylene plant and provide more than 2 billion pounds of advanced plastics that are responsible for transporting water and safely preserving food.

They are continuing to develop new innovations, with one of the latest being Advanced Recycling. Mustian stated that less than 10% of plastics are recycled today. The rest is either incinerated, put into a landfill, and/or winds up in the environment. He explained that Advanced Recycling compliments mechanical recycling and helps address plastic waste. The concept of Advance Recycling is done by enabling the breakdown of more kinds of plastics and converting them back into molecules to make new

products. This has already been done in Baytown and it is their intent to invest in several other facilities before 2026 with Beaumont being at the top of their list.

ExxonMobil believes in supporting the community and giving back. Over the past five years, ExxonMobil has provided more than $2 million in support to local groups that include the United Way of Beaumont and Northern Jefferson County, Beaumont Independent School District, LIT, Lamar University, Southeast Texas Food Bank, Southeast Texas Family Resource Center, and so many more. They have also provided nearly 6,500 volunteer hours in the past 2 years back into the community.