b'E c o n o m i c sSTEEL DYNAMICS SINTONFounded 30 years ago in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Steel Dy- BECHTELThe second-largest construction company in the U.S. was founded in namics, Inc., is now the third largest U.S. steel maker. Ground was broken in 2020 onSan Francisco in 1898, now based in Virginia, and is credited with building some of the companys massive 2,400-acre site northeast of Sinton, where its new South- the worlds biggest infrastructure projects. During World War II, Bechtel built over west division now operates. The flat roll steel mill is billed as one of the most ad- 600 ships for the U.S. military and its wartime contractors. Before that, the company vanced electric arc furnace (EAF) facilities in the world, capable of producing threecompleted the Hoover Dam in 1935, and after the war, Bechtel built pipelines and million tons per year of high-strength steel products, some of which were previouslyenergy infrastructure throughout the Middle East and in South America. In the U.S., unavailable in the U.S. Among Steel Dynamics Southwest customers is Austin-basedBechtel has built over 40% of the countrys nuclear power plants, and in 1987 it un-Tesla Motors, for which steel for its new Cybertruck is produced in Sinton. dertook the Chunnel, which connects the U.K. to mainland Europe through France. GULF COAST GROWTH VENTURESAn investment of $10 billion anywhere onBechtel is the primary construction partner of Cheniere Energy in its liquefied nat-earth is substantial beyond most of our imaginations, but in the top industrialural gas (LNG) plants, including in San Patricio County, where it is building and has growth market in the United States, such an investment can seem overlooked in itsbuilt two gas compressor trains, three storage tanks, and two shipping berths.significance. Over and above the dollar amount of the GCGV project in Gregory isNRG INGLESIDEOriginally built on the site of the now-defunct Sherwin Alumi-how it represents a transformation within the global energy industry. The plant pro- na plant, located between Gregory and Ingleside, NRGs 365-megawatt, natural gas duces monoethylene glycol and polyethylene, which are base resins for an endlesspowered electricity plant resumed operations in 2019.array of plastic products that appear in our everyday lives. What makes the GCGVCHENIERE ENERGYContrary to popular assumption, Cheniere is not a French con-plant big news is its equal partnership between ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Indus- cern, despite its name, but is a Houston-based company founded in 1996 to do oil tries Corporation (SABIC), which is 70% owned by Saudi Aramco, the state oil com- and gas exploration. The company shifted its focus in the mid-2000s to liquefied pany of Saudi Arabia that is wholly owned by the Saudi royal family. GCGV is one ofnatural gas, opening its first LNG terminal in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, in 2005. When several of the countrys investments meant to diversify beyond crude oil production. fracking in South Texas opened up the Saudi Arabia of natural gas in the 2010s, ARCELORMITTALLuxembourg-based, Indian-owned steel producer is the worldsCheniere attracted billions in capital investment for the expansion of its LNG export third largest that recently purchased 80% of the Voestalpine Texas plant, locatedfacilities, specifically in the Coastal Bend. Cheniere Corpus Christi now operates near Portland in the northeast corner of Corpus Christi Bay. The facility is one of thethree compressor trains, along with three storage tanks that can each fit a 747 air-worlds most advanced in the production of hot briquetted iron (HBI), a high-quali- liner, and two shipping berths positioned on the 45-foot-deep La Quinta Channel, ty steel feedstock, of which the plant can produce two million tons per year. capable of serving the worlds biggest LNG tankers, the 1,100-foot-long Q-Max class.98THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'