A couple of years ago, my brother in law told me we can expect a lot more plant blowups. He said it’s impossible to hire enough people and then get them to stay. After Valero blew I texted him. He is at the Dow plant (formerly Dupont) in Orange. Here’s his reply
Hey Chris. Wish I could say I was wrong but these refineries are old and we have no experience left that maintained and operated these units. I see it everyday. I talked to guys that are fixing to retire that work for Exxon , chevron and more they all say the same thing. Get out before they blow up the these facilities . Dow is panicking because I told them I might leave at end of year. They even told me to stay home and come when I want and when needed. I just don’t know if I want to. They even gave me a 15 percent raise. Just saying I don’t know if I want to.
I’m not in the industry, but was told a story years ago about a refinery in Deer Park. I assume it’s true but maybe some of y’all in the industry can confirm.
Harris County Flood Control District was investigating the potential to decrease floodplain in part of Deer Park by increasing drainage capacity from south side of 225 up to the Ship Channel. The existing drainage went through the refinery in a big box culvert. HCFCD wanted to double the capacity by adding a second box culvert.
They were warned against it by the refinery operators, because no one knew what was buried out there. Apparently the plant had been built around WWII era, but had been leased to multiple companies over its lifetime. And apparently every lessee built their own infrastructure (pipelines) across the site, but no one had records of where everything was.
You couldn’t pay me enough to run an excavator there…
Duce630
(DustinK - Damn it feels good to be a Cougar. -Dwight Davis)
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I believe it, probably not uncommon in many parts of the country. Likely a problem similar to the zombie wells we have across Texas.
That Port Arthur refiinery used to be a Texaco refinery and later a Shell refinery; I didn’t know it was bought by Valero. Since I retired in 2019, I haven’t kept up with the Petro-Chemical business.
They would probably just keep the property and turn it into a parking lot or something. But they would never sell it.
Texaco (now Chevron) owns a decent chunk of prime development acreage near Tour 18 along Woodland Hills and 1960 that they’ve kept for decades for exactly that reason.
. Dow is panicking because I told them I might leave at end of year. They even told me to stay home and come when I want and when needed. I just don’t know if I want to. They even gave me a 15 percent raise. Just saying I don’t know if I want to.