Houston is one of the world's largest manufacturing centers for petrochemicals, and the $15 billion petrochemical complex at the Houston Ship Channel is the largest in the country. A key asset of the region is the “Spaghetti Bowl,” a vast pipeline network covering thousands of miles along the Texas Gulf Coast and connecting some 200 chemical plants, refineries, salt domes and fractionation plants. This complex allows convenient and low-cost transfer of the fuel and chemical products – known as feedstocks – shared among plants, storage terminals and transportation facilities. Houston’s leading edge as the "Energy Capital of the World," means that energy-related businesses thrive in the region’s economy.

Petrochemical Facts:

• The Houston-Gulf Coast region has nearly 40 percent of the nation's petrochemicals manufacturing capacity.
• The Texas Gulf Coast region has a crude operable capacity of nearly 3.9 million barrels of refined petroleum products per calendar day, 22.8 percent of the nation’s total.
• Houston has more than 400 chemical manufacturing establishments with more than 35,000 employees.
• Houston dominates the U.S. production of three major resins: polyethylene (38.7 percent of U.S. capacity), polyvinyl chloride (35.9 percent of U.S. capacity) and polypropylene (48.4 percent of U.S. capacity).
• Forty-eight percent of the region’s economy is energy related.
• ExxonMobil's complex in Baytown is one of the oldest in the area and one of the largest of its kind in the world.
• Houston is geographically close to four ports that make the area’s petrochemicals accessible to the world.
• Half of all Texas plastics workers are employed in the Houston area.

Leading companies in petrochemicals include the following: