Dallas-based Cadence McShane Corp. was recently selected to complete several new expansions to Katoen Natie Gulf Coast Inc.'s Houston Polymers Terminal in La Porte.

The expansion projects included construction on a 3,680-sq.-ft office facility that was finished in July; a 252,00-sq.-ft. warehouse that was completed in September; and a 280,300-sq.-ft. warehouse set to be completed in January.

Expansion will bring the facility's total size to over 1 million sq. ft., half of which Cadence McShane has completed in the past two years. On the latest projects, the company used tiltwall panel and pre-engineered metal building designs.

Klimas Edmundson Group Inc. provided architectural services for the multi-phased projects.

Several Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex energy companies appear ready to make major investments in natural gas facilities, predicting a rise in consumer demand for liquefied natural gas.

"I not only expect to see (more investment), to a certain extent we're already seeing it," Mark Baxter, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, recently told the Dallas Business Journal. "You can see people are seriously involved with this, and how the shift is going from petroleum to natural gas on the industrial side."

At least three billion-dollar ventures are already either under way or in the planning stages.

ExxonMobil Corp. in Irving is contemplating spending up to $1 billion for a LNG terminal at Sabine Pass on the Texas-Louisiana border, and Hunt Oil Co. is considering building a single-train plant that would process up to 4.5 million tons of LNG per year.

Marathon Oil Corp., El Paso Corp., Sempra Energy and ChevronTexaco Corp. are already spending more than $3 billion on LNG depots to handle additional imports, according to the DBJ.

Baxter said that LNG plants that receive gas from the field and liquefy it for transport cost between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion each. Receipt terminals cost between $300 million and $700 million, and tankers to transport the gas are somewhere in the price range of $300 million each.

Exploration is even more costly. According to Tim Dove, executive vice president and CFO at Irving-based Pioneer Natural Resources Co., his company has spent $300 million to $400 million on natural gas exploration over the past three years.

Shreveport, La.-based Panhandle Energies LLC recently announced plans to build two $40 million ethanol plants in the West Texas towns of Dumas and Sunray.

According to the Dumas Economic Development Corp., each plant will produce 40 million gallons of ethanol per year, with the capability to expand to 80 million gallons.
Each facility is expected to employ 36 people, with a $1.3 million payroll initially.

Robert Worley, Dumas EDC executive director, said that the plants would be the first for ethanol in Texas.

Duke Pylant of Panhandle Energies LLC will move to the Texas Panhandle to serve as general manager of the plants.

"One of the primary reasons we're going to Texas is the location of the feedlots," Pylant told the Amarillo Globe-News. "We have a byproduct - distillers dried grain - that is primarily fed to the dairy and beef herds. The less you truck it, the better off you are.

Ground-breaking for the first plant is expected to take place early next year with completion expected in 2005.

Houston-based BPK Resources Inc. recently announced that Louisiana Shelf Partners LP, in which BPK owns an approximate 10-percent interest, has signed a drilling contract with Parker Drilling, utilizing a jack-up rig, to commence drilling on the exploration project located in Cameron Parish in offshore Louisiana.

The well - SL 17743 No. 1 - is permitted to a drill depth of 15,500 ft. The general partner projects the drilling operation to take approximately 40 days to drill and log to total drill depth, with an anticipated additional 10 days for completion of the well.

Louisiana Shelf Partners owns offshore leases in East Cameron Parish in portions of Block 4, 17, 18 and 22. The partnership's total acreage position is approximately 5,000 acres. The first well will be drilled on Block 18, with Blocks 4 and 18 anticipated to be explored after completion of exploration and development activity on Block 18.

Houston-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. recently announced that a subsidiary company received a four-year contract extension from Huntsman Chemical Corp. to provide maintenance services for eight Huntsman locations in Texas, extending a current agreement to June 2007.

Jacobs began providing field support services to Huntsman in January 2000.

Officials estimate the contract value for the extension of services at $50 million.
Jacobs provides maintenance, packaging, shipping, warehousing and small capital construction to eight Huntsman facilities in Odessa, Conroe, Dayton, Austin, Longview and the Port Arthur/Port Neches complex.

Jacobs supplies an average of over 320 supervisory and craft employees at those locations.

Huntsman, the Salt Lake City-based largest privately held chemical produced in the world, produces a wide range of chemicals, polymers and surfactants, which serve as intermediate feed products to various production industries.