Overview
The Largest Refining and Petrochemical Complex in the US
The Houston Ship Channel connects the Port of Houston Turning Basin with Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico across Harris County, with plants spilling into Chambers, Galveston and Brazoria counties. Port Houston reported 309.5 million short tons of cargo in 2023, up 5.3 percent from 2022, and a 2025 US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) report ranked the channel the top waterway in the US. Port Houston credits channel activity with $906B a year in US economic activity and nearly 1.5 million Texas jobs.
Refineries pass naphtha, ethane, propane and hydrogen to olefins and polymer plants on the same channel, while pipelines from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford deliver crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGLs). ExxonMobil's Baytown site, started by Humble Oil in 1919, is now a 3,400-acre complex with three ethylene crackers rated about 3.6 million tons a year; the newest, an ethane cracker, started in 2018.
| Port operator | Port Houston |
|---|---|
| Route | Turning Basin to Galveston Bay and the Gulf |
| Length | 52 miles |
| Terminals | More than 200 private, eight public |
| Counties | Harris, with Chambers, Galveston and Brazoria |
| Refiners | ExxonMobil, Pemex, Valero, Chevron |
| Chemical operators | Shell, Chevron Phillips, LyondellBasell, Dow, INEOS, Westlake |
| Feedstock | Permian and Eagle Ford crude, gas and NGLs |
| Oldest site | ExxonMobil Baytown, since 1919 |
Refining
Baytown and Deer Park Lead the Channel Refiners After LyondellBasell's Exit
LyondellBasell shut its 263,776-barrel-a-day Houston refinery in early 2025, removing about 3 percent of Gulf Coast refining capacity, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Two channel refineries remain in the EIA's national top 15: ExxonMobil Baytown at fifth and Pemex's Deer Park at 14th. Valero's Houston refinery and Chevron's Pasadena refinery, bought from Petrobras in 2019, round out the channel's refiners. Marathon Petroleum's Galveston Bay refinery in Texas City, the second-largest in the US, sits on the bay south of the channel.
| Operator | Site | Barrels per day | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ExxonMobil | Baytown | 564,500 | Integrated with olefins and polymers on 3,400 acres |
| Pemex (Deer Park Refining LP) | Deer Park | 312,500 | Pemex bought out Shell's stake in 2022 |
| Marathon Petroleum | Galveston Bay, Texas City | 631,000 | On Galveston Bay, outside the channel |
| LyondellBasell | Houston | 263,776 (closed) | Shut down in the first quarter of 2025 |
Chemicals and China
Ethylene Plants and Ethane Exports Tie the Channel to China
Chemical plants along the channel include Shell Chemicals at Deer Park, Chevron Phillips Chemical's Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, LyondellBasell at Channelview, and units run by Dow, INEOS and Westlake, which is headquartered in Houston. ExxonMobil Baytown's crackers feed polyethylene and polypropylene units on site.
Enterprise Products Partners ships ethane from its Morgan's Point terminal on the channel, and about half of US ethane exports go to China, where Satellite Chemical is a major buyer. In late May 2025 the US Commerce Department required export licenses for ethane cargoes bound for China, then rescinded the rule for Enterprise and Energy Transfer on July 2, 2025, under a US-China trade truce.
Constraints
Baytown Hydrogen Paused and Gas Demand Rises
ExxonMobil paused its Baytown low-carbon hydrogen project in November 2025 after failing to secure enough long-term offtake contracts. The plant was designed to make 1 billion cubic feet a day of hydrogen from natural gas and store about 7 million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide underground; ADNOC bought a 35 percent stake in 2024, and partners had spent about $500M. A restart would have to meet the 45V hydrogen tax credit rule that construction start before Jan 1, 2028. See the Texas Green Hydrogen Hub.
Channel crackers draw on the same Permian and Eagle Ford gas that feeds Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas terminals in the Texas LNG Export Hub and the gas-fired behind-the-meter (BTM) power plants planned for Texas data centers.
Record
Dataset Record
- Sources
- Port Houston, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Energy Information Administration (Refinery Capacity 2026), ExxonMobil, H2 Tech, Energy Capital HTX, Hydrocarbon Processing, Baird Maritime, Enterprise Products Partners
- Last verified
- October 2026