Energy
Houston is the U.S. energy headquarters and a world center for virtually every segment of the petroleum industry.
Forty-eight percent of the region's economic base employment is related to energy.
The Houston metropolitan area has more than 3,600 energy-related establishments, including more than 550 exploration and production firms, more than 200 pipeline transportation establishments and hundreds of manufacturers and wholesalers of energy-sector products.
This concentration of oil expertise and experience has meant a large number of relocations to Houston nearly every year since Shell Oil left New York for Houston in 1971. Energy firms who have relocated in recent years include:
- Heartland Oil and Gas Corporation relocating its corporate headquarters from Denver
- CITGO relocating its corporate headquarters from Tulsa
- Halliburton Co. relocating its corporate headquarters from Dallas
- Parker Drilling Co. relocating its headquarters from Tulsa
- Chevron and Phillips combining worldwide chemical operations into a 50/50 joint venture based in Houston
- ConocoPhillips choosing Houston as headquarters after the merger
- GlobalSantaFe relocating its corporate headquarters from Dallas
- Noble Affiliates Inc. moving to Houston from Ardmore, OK
- Key Energy Services, Inc. relocating its headquarters from Midland
Ten of the nation’s 25 largest publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production firms are headquartered in Houston; 8 of the remaining 15 have subsidiaries, major divisions or other significant operations here.
In December 2006, the Houston MSA held 28.4 percent of the nation's jobs in oil and gas extraction (40,500 of 142,800), 13.3 percent of jobs in support activities for mining (36,300 of 176,200).
The Texas Gulf Coast has a crude operable capacity of 4.115 million barrels of refined petroleum products per calendar day—86.50 percent of the Texas total and 23.9 percent of the U.S. total.
The logistics for moving much of the nation's petroleum and natural gas across the country are controlled from Houston. Thirteen of the nation’s top 20 oil pipelines have corporate or divisional headquarters or ownership interests in Houston, controlling 42.9 percent of U.S. capacity.
Fifteen of the nation's top 20 natural gas transmission companies have corporate of divisional headquarters in Houston, controlling 57.2 percent of U.S. capacity.
Source: Greater Houston Partnership
Green Houston 
