This may revive the county's lagging residential rental capacity as developers and investors seek to fill this gap. This, according to Gary McKinley, director of the Wood County Industrial Commission, in a recent conversation with The Gazette.
McKinley also noted a couple of other positive points. He said that right now, in terms of property taxes, much "is born by the residential owners." He believes this development will increase the commercial tax base. He also pointed out that Praxair, a provider of industrial gas, may be a "lure for other industries that need industrial gas" to come to Wood County.
McKinley said the "big thing is the combined number of contracted jobs - 300 with Exxon and the $50 million Praxair project with 50 to 60 jobs - so about 400 folks over the next year and a half will be working in Wood County."
The project will extend the life of the oil field, discovered by ExxonMobil in 1940, by another 25 years. It is expected that an additional 40 million barrels of oil will be produced.
"ExxonMobil is applying some of its most advanced technologies to mature oil and natural gas fields. The investment is part of an ongoing effort to find, develop and produce and produce more domestic supplies of oil and gas to meet the country's growing energy needs,: according to Kok-Yew See, the firm's U.S. production manager.
He added, "ExxonMobil continues to invest in oil and natural gas development in Texas. Over the past three years our capital expenditure in the state exceeded $700 million."
(almost 50% of that total will be in the Hawkins Field)
He continued, "These investments help create jobs and contribute to the economic growth of the region and the state. They also help maintain Texas' position as the leading U.S. oil and natural gas producing state."
New facilities will be installed at the Hawkins Field to recover and reinject nitrogen and other gases from the field's natural gas production. This will enable more oil and gas to be recovered from the reservoirs. In terms of the environment, the reinjection of these gases will reduce the plant's air emissions by almost one-third.
Construction will begin sometime in the first quarter of 2010. The actual project start-up will be in late 2011.
The Hawkins Field is one of the largest ever discovered in Texas, producing over 800 million barrels of oil in past 70 years since discovery, and provided significant energy supplies for America's war efforts during World War II.
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