Moving Forward Archive

Hazelwood Energy Hub plans to build a $400 million facility in St. Landry Parish that can store and blend custom crude oil for Louisiana refineries and other customers, a development that will create 200 or more construction jobs, and more than 120 high paying permanent jobs.

Company and economic development officials announced the project in Opelousas Sept. 30. The company will construct six above ground crude oil storage tanks and use four salt dome caverns—described as about as deep as the  Empire State Building is tall—f or additional storage of numerous crude oil varieties. It plans to blend and ship crude oil to refinery customers in the Gulf Region.

The new permanent jobs will have an average annual salary of $63,500, plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development estimates the petroleum hub project will also result in 145 new, permanent indirect jobs, for a total of more than 265 new jobs in Acadiana.

“When beginning this project, the development team considered locations in several neighboring states,” Hazelwood president Bob Edmundson said. “The efforts of St. Landry Parish and Louisiana Economic Development were instrumental in bringing this project to the people of St. Landry Parish. We look forward to many years of cooperation, making Louisiana the center of Gulf Coast energy development.”

“St. Landry Economic Development is very pleased to be working with such a great group of private and public partners who have come together to make this game-changing project possible,” said Bill Rodier, executive director of the St. Landry Parish Economic Development District. “This is yet another example of how St. Landry Parish is ‘Moving Forward’ and of the untapped business opportunity that we still have available here in this parish.”

Construction is expected to begin by early 2016, with completion by early 2018.The first phase of the blending facility will include four huge caverns in the Port Barre salt dome and above ground tanks for up to 13 million barrels of storage. Company officials anticipate later expansion. According to a company statement, it anticipates that the facility eventually could become the world’s largest crude oil blending operation.

The 750-acre Hazelwood site is adjacent to Spectra Energy’s Bobcat Gas storage facility near Port Barre, which Edmundson developed a decade ago. That facility was sold by Edmundson and other investors to Spectra Energy in 2010.

Hazelwood will have access to a pipeline network and will operate a barge loading and unloading facility at the Port of Krotz Springs on the Atchafalaya River. The site is also adjacent to the Union Pacific railroad and U.S. 190, which connect the facility to customer markets throughout the Gulf Coast, Edmundson said.

The plant will provide storage for several crude varieties, with the ability to blend up to 10 

types of crude simultaneously. Refiners and other Hazelwood’s customers can specify the characteristics they want in their crude blend in order to match markets and refinery capabilities. There are 17 refineries within Hazelwood’s proposed market.

“This is one of the largest investments made in the parish, and with it comes jobs and opportunity,” St. Landry Parish President W.K. “Bill” Fontenot Jr. said. “We welcome the Hazelwood Energy Hub with open arms. St. Landry Parish is happy to be in the right place at the right time, to be able to accommodate such a project.”

The state began discussing a potential project with the company in December. Hazelwood considered sites in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama before choosing Louisiana.

Stone Bridge Energy Partners, a Houston-based developer of energy and chemicals projects, is the lead developer of the Hazelwood project. Other key business partners and contractors expected to be involved in the project include Cameron Measurement Systems, Florida Marine, Macquarie Energy, Quanta Services, SGS Petroleum and WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff.

“We are happy to welcome Hazelwood Energy to the Port of Krotz Springs,” said Gary Soileau, executive director of the Greater Krotz Springs Port Commission. “Their plans to build and operate a state-of-the-art facility for crude oil storage and blending will be a big positive for our port, our community and our parish. The new facility will provide a large economic impact with construction and permanent jobs.”