LyondellBasell Houston Refinery, Texas

One of the largest high sulfur crude refineries in the nation. Covering 700 acres along Houston's Ship Channel, it has the capacity to turn 268,000 barrels of crude per day into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, lubricants, and coke. It was one of the first refineries built in the region, in 1918, when it was operated by Sinclair. It was later bought by ARCO. It became part of the original assets of the Lyondell Chemical Company, along with an olefins plant across the channel in Channelview, when the company was established as a spin-off of ARCO in 1985. The plant, with over 1,300 employees, was operated jointly with the Venezuelan company CITGO from 1993 to 2006, but is now operated solely by the Houston Refining LP subsidiary of Lyondell. Lyondell, based in Houston, is one of the largest chemical companies in the nation. It became even larger in 2007, when it was acquired by the Dutch company Basell, becoming LyondellBasell, with 22 plants in the USA, 11 of them in Texas.