Document bB3bjKgop8GZrBaD0Xn1OzemZ

ifiiiidL _ ..A-,.:;-,-., Corpus Christi officials and business of a $5-million, 45,000-square-foot admin-, eteria at the Koch refinery on Suntide leaders attended last week's dedication istrativeoffice, computer center and caf- Road.., . - ~ Koch wants to Refinery's growth over decade has included 500 new jobs , By Grady Phelps i BUSINESS WRITER : Koch Refining Co., which has invested ` $800 million at its Corpus Christi refinery in the past decade while adding 500 new jobs, still has lots of room and hopefully opportunities for i more j growth. industrial : W.W. Hanna, presi' dent and chief execu- { tive officer of Koch Industries Inc., the Kansas-based con glomerate parent company, said Koch is utilizing only about 40 percent of its Hanna ; nearly 2,000 acres j here. "We have ample room for future expan sion," Hanna said in an interview. "We foresee the downstream need to add more and more projects." Hanna, in Corpus Christi last week to dedicate a new $ 5-million, 45,000- square-foot administrative office, com-, puter center and cafeteria at the Koch re finery. on Suntide Road, said the com pany currently has $350 million worth of expansion under construction in several separate projects. Current projects, due for completion in late 1993, will generate a peak construc tion work force of .700 people by late 1992.; These include a $ 150-million crude unit that will boost the refinery's crude pro cessing capacity from its existing 160,000 barrels a day to 250,000 barrels daily, or the largest production capability among Corpus Christi's five petroleum refiner ies. " Other work includes a $ 103-million paraxylene expansion, a $43-million wastewater treatment facility, a new die sel fuel hydrotreater to meet new environ- / mental regulations and improvements Xjs its pipeline system and Ingleside crude storage terminal. / Koch is rapidly building itself into Nueces County's largest industrial manu facturer and taxpayer,. "The new crude unit will provide us with the increased reliability and feed stocks needed to meet current require ments as well as open opportunities for future growth to meet the need of our fu els and petrochemical customers," Hanna said. As Koch's local projects expand, soj will its permanent staff employment force, al though future personnel projections are too difficult to make at this time, Hanna said. WhendSoch acquired its local plant and 500 apes from Sun Oil Co. for $265 mil lion-'in 1981 - it had a process limit of 60000 barrels a day. / Less than a year after it purchased Sun's property, Koch bought the 30,000-barrel-a-day Gulf States Oil and Refining plant on 81 acres adjoining it. In 1983, Please see Koch/G2 i. r> l r\ 'o-