July 19th Program

brought us this week's program.  The Total facility was originally constructed as an oil terminal in the early 1900s.  The refinerly began operation in 1937.  It has been known as the Atlantic, British Petroleum, Sohio and Petrofina refineries until 1999 when Total merged with Petrofina.

Based in Paris, France Total is the 5th largest integrated oil and gas company in the world with activities in more than 130 countries, employing about 112,000 people.

The Port Arthur facility has be upgraded several times.  Its present capacity is 174,000 barrels of crude oil each day.  It is presently undergoing a $2.2 billion deep converson project that will add about 23.5 million barrels of ultra low sulfur automotive diesel per year to its production.  At peak they have had 4,700 craft workers on site.

The expansion has used 69,000 cubic yards of concrete (more thatn used constructing the Empire State Building), 16,000 tons of structural steel (twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower), 182 miles of pipe (enouch to reach to Baton Rouge), 492 miles of cable and by the end of the project will log 7.1 million construction workhours.

The economic impact to the Golden Triangle of Southeast Texas will be more than $2.1 billion.  At least 60 new permanent full-time jobs will be created.