Area Development
Nacero Inc., a Houston-based company, plans to build a roughly $7 billion lower carbon gasoline manufacturing facility in Penwell, Texas. When fully operational, the plant will employ 350 full time operators and maintenance personnel.

Phase one will produce 70,000 barrels per day of gasoline component (ready for blending) with phase two increasing that capacity to 100,000 barrels per day. The gasoline produced at the facility will contain no sulfur and have half the lifecycle carbon footprint of traditional gasoline. Construction is slated to begin before the end of 2021 and will employ a peak of 3,500 skilled workers during the four years of phase one construction.

Nacero said its gasoline will be useable in today’s cars and trucks without modification, will be sold locally in addition to being distributed widely, and will be cost competitive with traditional gasoline.

“Ector County is the ideal location for us,” said Nacero President and CEO Jay McKenna. “From a geographic and logistics standpoint you can’t beat it. We will be a major new market and beneficial home for the natural gas that is currently flared in the Permian Basin. Our zero-sulfur gasoline will reduce ground level ozone, a pollutant that is causing illness and limiting economic growth in cities across Texas and the Southwest.”

All of the plant’s electricity will come from renewable sources, much of which will be produced on-site from solar panels co-located with the manufacturing facilities on Nacero’s 2,600 acre site. The plant will be the first in the US to make gasoline from natural gas and the first in the world to do so with carbon capture and sequestration. Sequestered CO2 will be transported via an existing on-site pipeline.

“The regional economic impact of this single facility will be in the tens of billions of dollars. I thank my staff and all those who worked with them for their hard work in bringing this incredible opportunity here,” added Odessa Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Director Wesley Burnett.

The Odessa Development Corporation and the Economic Development Department of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce led the negotiations that resulted in Penwell being chosen for this important facility.