Historic Louisiana

HISTORIC LOUISIANA
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TEXACO, INC.
“First,” “largest,” and “most” are all words
that appear frequently in any history of Texaco’s
petroleum production and refining operations
in Louisiana. With its presence here dating back
to the founding of The Texas Company in 1902,
Texaco takes pride in the part it has played in
the development and economy of the Pelican
State over the past century.
In September 1902, the Company first
qualified to do business as a marketer,
producer and refiner of petroleum and its
products in Louisiana. A pumping station and
storage tanks were constructed at Amesville,
across the river from New Orleans, that same
year. This was followed in 1906 by
construction of the Company’s first Louisiana
bulk plant, located in Lake Charles, and its
first automobile gasoline filling station, which
was opened in New Orleans in 1914.
Among The Texas Company’s earliest
customers were sugar planters along the
Mississippi River, who bought crude oil to fuel
the engines that ground their cane. Like the
economy of Louisiana, the Company’s markets
have steadily diversified and expanded ever
since that time.
New Orleans ranks as one of the busiest
ports in the United States in terms of foreign
trade and total tonnage of waterborne
commerce. Texaco ships huge quantities of
natural gas through a complex network of
pipelines to hundreds of Southern Louisiana
industries ranging from shipyards to
petrochemical plants to aerospace-related
manufacturers.
In the metropolitan New Orleans area, two
manufacturing plants operate for every mile
of the Mississippi River in St. Charles Parish.
Petroleum continues to be the backbone of
business in Louisiana. Its importance has
grown steadily through the years, and this
industry continues to dominate the state’s
economy. Texaco has paced the industry
throughout the past century, and that
leadership continues today.
The Company’s first pipeline facilities in
Louisiana were constructed in 1906 in the
Evangeline. Fifteen years later the Texas Pipe
Line Company acquired facilities formerly
owned by its parent company, The Texas
Company, and obtained a license to operate in
the state.
The pipeline company’s first installation
was a gathering system between Lafitte and
Marrero in 1935, followed the next year by
facilities in the Garden Island-Pilottown area;
and in 1937 by those in the New Iberia-Avery
Island area. In 1943 the first extensive main
line facilities were built from the South
Louisiana fields to Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1950 the Marrero Terminal opened as a
waterfront terminal on the site of Texaco’s first
terminal at Amesville, with expansion in 1958