New Spindletop natural gas storage facility will bring jobs, economic growth to Southeast Texas
Lupita Villarreal, Simona Barca | December 15, 2022 (12 News Beaumont) –
A new natural gas storage facility is coming to Spindletop in Beaumont, allowing for more jobs and economic growth in Southeast Texas.
Caliche Development Partners bought the Golden Triangle storage facility in November and they're hoping to expand their operations.
At this moment, the facility has two salt caverns that store natural gas, but the dome can hold up to nine caverns.
In 1901, Spindletop changed Beaumont forever.
"Beaumont is the cradle of the oil and gas industry here in our state and because of that, there's a tremendous amount of infrastructure here," said CEO of Caliche Development Partners, David Marchese.
Marchese says Beaumont's rich history is what brought Houston-based Caliche Development Partners to Spindletop.
"This is the top of the facility. Underneath this wellhead about 2,000 feet underground is a formation the size of the Empire State Building," Marchese said.
The cylinder-shaped formation stores natural gas, which is usually stored underground.
Darrell Hall, Vice President of Operations with Caliche, has worked on the Spindletop dome for 15 years.
"A lot of new businesses have come on. Caliche came in, they brought a lot of excitement to the dome and went from mostly all natural gas or gas liquids to our storage to to liquid storage," Hall said.
Under the new management, the facility is also expected to expand.
"We're excited about looking for ways that we might be able to grow this business using the resources that we've been granted here," Marchese said.
Once they expand, they'll be looking to fill those new positions with local workers.
In the meantime, they are hiring two more operators that they hope to start in the new year.
Job opportunities can be found here.