ExxonMobil on Thursday announced the successful startup of its Beaumont refinery expansion project in Texas, which adds 250,000 barrels per day of capacity to one of the largest refining and petrochemical complexes along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Supported by the company’s growing crude production in the Permian Basin, the largest refinery expansion in more than a decade will help meet growing demand for affordable, reliable energy, release from the company said.
“ExxonMobil maintained its commitment to the Beaumont expansion even through the lows of the pandemic, knowing consumer demand would return and new capacity would be critical in the post-pandemic economic recovery,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Product Solutions.
“The new crude unit enables us to produce even more transportation fuels at a time when demand is surging. This expansion is the equivalent of a medium-sized refinery and is a key part of our plans to provide society with reliable, affordable energy products”, she said.
The added volume in Beaumont increases its total processing capacity to more than 630,000 barrels per day, making it one of the largest refineries in the United States, the release said.
The refinery is connected to pipelines from ExxonMobil’s operations in the U.S. Permian Basin, providing the company with significant strategic advantages. Permian crude oil is processed at the Beaumont refinery where the company manufactures finished products, including diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel, the release noted. With the completion of Wink to Webster and Beaumont pipelines, the new crude unit will also be well-positioned to further capitalize on segregated crude from the Delaware Basin.
In 2022, the release noted that ExxonMobil reached record production at its North American refineries and achieved its highest global throughput since 2012. The company’s commitment and capability to meet society’s energy needs includes its willingness to invest, even counter cyclically.
Construction on the Beaumont expansion began in 2019 and involved 1,700 contractors. ExxonMobil has hired more than 50 full-time employees to help with the operation of the expanded refinery. The company’s extensive project management experience enabled the new crude and hydrotreater units to startup according to planned cost and schedule, the release said.
ExxonMobil’s integrated operations in Beaumont also include chemical, lubricants and polyethylene plants. ExxonMobil has approximately 2,100 employees in the Beaumont area and its operations account for approximately 1 in every 7 jobs in the region, the release said.
Forbes in its reporting on the project said that the new capacity would seem to satisfy at least one of US President Joe Biden’s criticisms of the industry, which has been an allegation that it has intentionally been under-producing gasoline during peak driving times of the year. That criticism arose during late 2021 and has been repeated by Biden and his senior officials often since, without much supporting evidence, Forbes said.
At the same time, though, Forbes said that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other senior administration appointees have also repeated a mantra claiming that the U.S. will only need oil and refined products for another 10 years or so, a talking point Biden even included in his State of the Union address. Forbes said that Granholm appeared to modify that position during her recent speech at CERAWeek, in which she acknowledged that even “the boldest projections for clean energy deployment suggest that in the middle of the century we are going to be using abated fossil fuels.”