By DAN WALLACH , The Beaumont Enterprise

The prime contractor that will build ExxonMobil Corp.'s Golden Pass liquefied natural gas terminal in Sabine Pass met with vendors, suppliers and subcontractors on Wednesday in Port Arthur, a day after it had a similar meet-and-greet with minority businesses, a project executive said.

The purpose was to make contacts and to help ExxonMobil use as many local resources in the $1 billion project as possible, said Tom Burger, vice president of project development for Golden Pass, ExxonMobil's name for the terminal.

The prime contractor, Chicago Bridge & Iron Co., is to build the terminal on-site, hiring as many local workers as possible and using the maximum number of supplies from local businesses - both of which will help ExxonMobil qualify for tax abatements from Port Arthur and Jefferson County governments.

Bo-Mac Contractors of Beaumont, for example, already is at work driving pilings at the site west of the Sabine-Neches Ship Channel, across from the southern tip of Pleasure Island.

Burger said dredging the channel for berths to offload liquefied natural gas at the terminal is about to start.

ExxonMobil plans to bring natural gas to the terminal from the Persian Gulf in ultra-cold liquefied form on insulated tankers. A 75-mile pipeline system to be built separately would take the gas to existing pipelines and to any domestic U.S. market, he said.

The terminal should be running by mid-2009, and its full capacity is 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, the company estimates.

At the contractor meetings in the Carl A. Parker Multipurpose Center on the Lamar State College-Port Arthur campus, executives from CB&I outlined the project's scope and informed those in attendance of the best way to contact the company for possible contracts.

Interested companies can go to www.goldenpasslng.com, click on "contact us," then "contractor and employment information," and "employment," or "subcontractor and vendor."

ExxonMobil announced its selection of CB&I on Aug. 1.

Last year, the oil giant had staged a similar meet-and-greet with Southeast Texas companies at Ford Park when it was considering three candidates for its prime contractor. CB&I was one of the three in attendance.

dwallach@hearstnp.com
(409) 838-2876

   
©The Beaumont Enterprise 2006