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Photo by Shay La’Vee
Texas is still No. 1 for petroleum, and it’s not even close.
by GARY DAUGHTERS
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he Spindletop oilfield, discovered at the turn of the 20th century on a salt formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry. Eight years of drilling on Spindletop Hill paid off on January 10, 1901. The Lucas Gusher, as the unfolding phenomenon quickly became known, blew a stream of oil more than 100 feet high until it was capped some nine days later. The Spindletop oilfield would come to produce more oil in a day than the rest of the world’s oilfields combined. Companies that set up shop nearby included the Texas Company (later Texaco), Gulf Oil Corporation and Humble (later Exxon). Texas, to put it mildly, has never looked back. More than a century later, the Lone Star State knows no equal among petroleum producing states. As “The Capital of Energy Independence,” Texas leads the nation in petroleum refining and chemical products production and is a global leader in the closely allied petrochemical industry. Houston is known as “The Energy Capital of
TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
the World.” According to TIPRO, The Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, Texas led the nation in oil and gas jobs in 2020 with 347,529 people employed in the industry. That’s 39% of the oil and gas jobs in the entire country. The industry, says TIPRO, supported some 2.3 million Texas jobs through direct, indirect and induced multipliers. The state’s 12,000 oil and gas businesses represent three times the number of second-place Oklahoma. Not surprisingly, many leaders in the petrochemical industry received formal education in Texas, including at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. U.S. News and World Report ranks the UT Department of Petroleum Engineering graduate program tops in the country, while the UT undergraduate program is ranked No. 2. Delivering Downstream Texas’ 27 refineries lead the nation in both crude oil production and refining. With over 5.1 million barrels
