LYNCHBURG – ExxonMobil Pipeline Company will install pipelines underneath the San Jacinto River, one at the Houston Ship Channel between here and Baytown, the other north to the IH-10 bridge using a technique called Horizontal Directional Drilling.
Some of this work will include activity on Alexander Island, an uninhabited island within the channel. This project is a part of a $500 million energy infrastructure investment in East Harris County.
According to a press release from ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, “Throughout all phases of planning and installation, work will be conducted with an unwavering commitment to the safety of the community, the environment and our team members. We are proud of the highly skilled team we have assembled for this project, and we encourage you to follow our progress as the project advances at: http://webster.exxonmobilpipeline.com/, where you can ask us a question about our work and hear directly from some of our team members about how they keep safety first. Our commitment to safety and the environment ExxonMobil Pipeline Company is committed to the safe and responsible installation, operation and maintenance of all of its pipelines and facilities. We strive for an incident-free workplace and a culture that supports our clear and simple objective: Nobody Gets Hurt.”
Before mobilization, this project required extensive permitting and consultation with federal, state and local authorities, including, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Port of Houston Authority, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Texas Commission on Environment Quality, Harris County and the City of Baytown, among others. Numerous inspections are conducted during our work to verify the construction quality of the new pipe before it is placed into service. Once a pipeline is operational, inspections and maintenance are conducted on a regular basis for the life of the pipe.
ExxonMobil Pipeline Company began last Fall to replace an existing 20-mile crude oil pipeline between EMPCo’s Webster Station in Webster, TX and ExxonMobil’s Baytown refinery in Baytown. The work will take place on and along a 20-mile pipeline corridor through parts of Webster, Houston, La Porte, Pasadena, Deer Park and Baytown. The replacement 36 inch pipeline will support delivery and takeaway crude service to and from ExxonMobil’s Baytown refinery, and will reinforce the energy infrastructure network enabling domestic crude production from the Permian Basin in west Texas and southeast New Mexico.
Also beginning in the Fall of 2020, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company will replace approximately eight miles of an existing pipeline in the Baytown and Channelview areas between the Baytown refinery and Moore Road junction near the southeast intersection of Beltway 8 and Highway 90. ExxonMobil and its predecessors have safely operated multiple pipelines in these locations for many years. This work supports the continued safe and reliable operation of our pipelines in the region.
In 2020, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company replaced approximately 10 miles of pipeline segments in Baytown, Deer Park and Pasadena on its Pasadena Pipeline system. The construction work was safely completed in the Summer of 2020. We appreciate the cooperation of local officials who supported the safe and timely completion of this project.”
Lynchburg neighbors declined to speak of the neighborhood cut through.
The Houston region has become the country’s first place region for exports, by being home to the largest petrochemical manufacturing complex in the Americas. Energy production and the export of crude oil, along with the increasing global demand for chemicals produced in the region, are major drivers of this success. Largely because of petrochemical activity along the 52-mile ship channel, the nearly 200 private companies that make up the Greater Port of Houston have helped make the port the first place U.S. port in foreign waterborne tonnage.