You can sum up the main reason for Louisiana's post-Hurricane Katrina growth in two words: oil and gas. You can see it in all the new petrochemical plants, refineries and oil supply companies for offshore rigs in Louisiana towns like New Orleans, Lake Charles and Houma, and west on Route 10 into Texas through Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston and Houston. And you see it the lines of convoys of construction vehicles in dusty west Texas towns of Midland and Odessa, home to the Eagle Ford play, one of the biggest oil deposits in the world.
The sheer magnitude of all this growth is amazing. The Times-Picayune reported $103 billion worth of oil-related projects have been completed, are underway or will start soon in Louisiana, including giant petrochemical plants like the $1.3 billion methanol plant that recently broke ground in the state and the billons Sasol plans to spend on an ethane cracker and the gas-to-liquids plants. Along with all of this oil and gas business has come public works projects like the $546 expansion of New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport. (Photo credit: Thinkstock)
Find out more about what's happening in southern Louisiana in this Times Picayune article.
