ExxonMobil may soon be moving toward an expansion that includes the lower Texas Gulf Coast, an area that's been booming lately.
The industry-leading oil giant indicates it will likely spend billions of dollars on its Coastal Plain Project, which includes construction of a plastics plant in the city of Point Comfort, about 110 miles southwest of Houston in Calhoun County, southeast of Victoria.
The company has said the new project is under serious consideration, to the delight of many who live in the area because it would bring an estimated 3,000 jobs during the construction phase, along with 300 contract and 300 permanent jobs at the plant, once completed.
"It generates revenue not only from the plant itself, but also for the economy," King Operating oilman Jay Young commented on hearing about the proposed plant.
"Restaurants, dry cleaners, donut shops...everybody else is going to start enjoying that extra revenue" when and if it comes, he added.
And it would be good for the energy industry.
ExxonMobil has applied for a 50% reduction in school district property taxes for 10 years in Calhoun County, starting in 2031, according to the Houston Chronicle.
If a final approval is made, the company could spend between $8 billion and $11 billion to get the project online.
But Texas is just one of several locations the company is looking at for the new plant. The application indicates that potential sites in other parts of North America, along with the Middle East and Asia as it weighs the costs and benefits.
The proposed plant is just a little north of Corpus Christi, which has grown 238% in the years since 2013 both in activity and income, so much so that Forbes magazine recently named it the "fastest-growing port in the US, by a wide margin.