Beaumont Enterprise

By DAN WALLACH

October 18, 2009
Posted: October 16, 2009, 11:02 PM CDT   Last updated: October 17, 2009, 2:05 AM CDT

This time next year, about 6,500 people will be working on the Motiva Enterprises refinery expansion, project director Nick Smallwood said.

That’s almost exactly a third of the current number of unemployed people in Southeast Texas, which – as of September – totaled 19,700.

“We think there is a huge opportunity, given the unemployment,” Smallwood said.

The $7 billion project will double the refinery’s daily capacity to 600,000 barrels of crude processing, making it the largest in the United States and among the top 10 in the world.

“We’re probably the biggest construction project in North America,” Smallwood said.

An estimated 2,800 people are at work on the project right now.

It never stopped, even though a cost review earlier this year slowed it down.

As Motiva awards new contracts, the project will shift into a more intense pace construction.

Scheduled completion is in 2012, Smallwood said.

Motiva plans to award bids to eight major contractors, which then will hire a variety of subcontractors.

It keeps international contractor Becon Construction Co. Inc. as the manager on the project.

The expansion requires a global effort, Smallwood said.

“It wouldn’t be physically possible to do everything locally,” he said.

But Smallwood said the project will need a skilled local workforce.

“We’ll be looking locally – Port Arthur, the Golden Triangle, and beyond. In the new year, we’ll be looking to hire as many as we can,” he said.

That means pipe fitters, welders, electricians, insulators and other crafts will be in great demand.

Smallwood estimated the economic impact of the project on the Southeast Texas economy at $17 billion.

The Motiva Enterprises refinery expansion by the numbers:

$7 billion-plus in actual construction to double the refinery’s daily capacity to 600,000 barrels of crude oil processing, making it the largest in the United States and among the world’s top 10.

$17 billion in economic activity generated

6,500 workers at peak by October 2010

Eight major contractors, hiring a variety of subcontractors

Scheduled completion in 2012.

The contractors Motiva expects to hire by late December or early January will perform the detailed work of the project, which involves installing:

3.1 million linear feet of pipe, or about 600 miles;

5.6 million linear feet of cable, or more than 1,000 miles;

78,000 tons of structural steel, more than enough to build an aircraft carrier;

285,000 cubic yards of concrete, enough for a solid cube 170 feet high if poured on a football field;

61,175 pilings to support 2,000 pieces of equipment. The pilings equal 852 miles in length, or just about the width of Texas;

310 modules, which are being built and delivered over the water from fabrication yards in Brewer, Maine; Charleston, S.C.; Corpus Christi; and Tampico, Mexico;

Getting a job:

Go to http://www.motivaexpansionproject.com/pages/employment.aspx

Click on employment on the left side of the menu page.

Call Becon employment center: (409) 989-4295 or visit the employment office at the Itex gate on Texas 82 and apply in person from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday.

Call the Workforce Solutions Port Arthur office, (409) 962-1236

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One man sees a future in Motiva expansion

By DAN WALLACH

October 18, 2009
Posted: October 16, 2009, 11:24 PM CDT   Last updated: October 17, 2009, 2:17 AM CDT

Nothing looks more mechanized than the steel structures of petroleum refineries.

But every piece is set in place by human hands like those of Vincent Vu’s.

Vu, 49, last week marked his one-year anniversary working at Motiva Enterprises’ expansion.

He is one of thousands of people from the area benefiting from the massive project.

A native of Vietnam who emigrated with his family in 1981 after knowing almost nothing but war as a child, Vu settled in Port Arthur.

For 17 years, his family operated Vince’s Seafood restaurant, 5044 Gulfway Drive.

He sold the business about three years ago – in part to escape from the 14-hour, six-day-per-week grind, and to help care for his cancer-stricken father, with whom he was able to spend the last year of his life.

“I was always working,” he said. “Never time to do anything.”

Now he works shifts common to industry that amount to 80 hours in nine work days in the course of two weeks.

Vu also puts in another two hours an evening, Monday through Thursday, for classroom work to help him upgrade his skills to help him earn more and to qualify for other jobs that are to come.

The civil side is in concrete work, rebar, carpentry and other jobs dealing with the foundation work of the expansion.

Vu has achieved journeyman status in the civil skills – concrete work, rebar, carpentry and other jobs dealing with the foundation work of the expansion – and wants to pursue skills on the mechanical side, like pipe-fitting and electrical, which pay more and will be the focus of the next phase of the refinery’s construction.

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