The Port of Corpus Christi

00:00:00 Speaker 1
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00:00:27 Speaker 2
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host, KC Yost. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools, and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline.

00:00:53 KC Yost
Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Today we're privileged to be recording at the November meeting of the San Antonio Pipeliners Association at the beautiful Embassy Suites Landmark Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. Our guest is Omar Garcia, Chief External Affairs Officer from the Port of Corpus Christi. We'll be discussing, among other things, the importance of the port for local, state, and global economies, port projects, energy transition initiatives, and the future for the Port of Corpus Christi. So welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast, Omar.

00:01:36 Omar Garcia
Thank you KC. I think I understand that this is the first live podcast you've done?

00:01:41 KC Yost
The first live podcast I've done.

00:01:43 Omar Garcia
Yes, it's mine, as well. And this is always one of my favorite venues to speak at the San Antonio Pipeliners Association luncheon. So Rudy and Michael, thank you for inviting me. I think this is my fifth time, so I really, really appreciate the audience, really appreciate the topics, and look forward to a great discussion.

00:01:59 KC Yost
Super, super. Well, glad to have you here. And thank you again, Sapa, for inviting me to come over. It's great, actually. I'm seeing a lot of old friends in the audience, so it's good to catch up. So now before we start talking about the Port of Corpus Christi, let's talk about you. Okay? You grew up in Kingsville and went to St. Edward's school. Tell us about your career.

00:02:20 Omar Garcia
I did. I ended up in St. Edward's. I assume there's a lot of Cowboy fans in this room, and for those of us that are old enough to remember the 1990s, the Dallas Cowboys had their spring training at St. Edward's back when they were winning Super Bowls. Everybody remember that back in the nineties and they were winning Super Bowls? And so I was on my way to UT, has accepted to go to UT, and my dad said, "Let's go stop and see the Cowboys." And we stopped to see the Cowboys. And the next thing I know, I was in the admissions office receiving a scholarship and the rest is history. Graduated from St. Edward's University, but was born and raised in Kingsville. So I grew up 30 miles south of Corpus Christi, proud H. M. King Brahma, grew up with the King Ranch in the background. So had a very great upbringing, rural Texas. It was a lot of fun being a kid back in the eighties and nineties. I would not want to be a kid today, but growing up in rural Texas was certainly had its advantages.

00:03:16 KC Yost
Yeah, we talked before the luncheon started about Joe Cotten's in Robstown. I spent a lot of time there in the mid to late seventies and miss it terribly. I understand that there's something out there that's supposed to replicate it, but doesn't quite make it.

00:03:32 Omar Garcia
Yeah. Joe Cotten's was a staple for anybody that went through Robstown. You stopped on your way to Corpus on the way back from Corpus, but I'm happy to tell you, KC, that there is still, now, a Mike Cotten's Barbecue in Calallen off of 624.

00:03:45 KC Yost
Good.

00:03:45 Omar Garcia
So the next time you're in that area, you should stop by. It's still the great barbecue, the brisket, the beans, the cheese spread, nothing's changed.

00:03:51 KC Yost
Sweet, sweet. I like that. So after St. Ed's, what did you do?

00:03:56 Omar Garcia
After St. Ed's, my degree was in International Business in Spanish. I was on the way to be an FBI agent. I was hell-bent, I wanted to be an FBI agent. That's what I wanted to do. Spent some time with some agents in Austin and in the Corpus Christi area, but my senior year prior to graduating, you had to do an internship. And so I didn't know what I wanted to be other than an FBI agent. Well, I had a gentleman in my class that had just wrapped up an internship with the governor's office doing economic development. That was back when George W. Bush was governor of the great state of Texas and did an internship there and really enjoyed economic development, creating jobs for the state, creating jobs for specific regions. So when I graduated college, got my first job out of Austin for TIP Strategies, doing economic development. Did that for about a year. And I will tell you, after five years in Austin, there was a little thing called Cedar that started to bother me a lot and it became a quality of life issue for me. So I was very fortunate enough to get a job in Corpus Christi, doing economic development for the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation. So did that for about five years, had an opportunity to go to Houston to do business development for Bank of America on their treasury management side. Spent some time in Houston, was recruited to come to the city of San Antonio to do economic development at the city of San Antonio from 2007 to 2010. From there, it went to the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, which now has a new name, but worked for Barrio Hernandez for about two and a half years. And then my career at Oil and Gas started in 2012.

00:05:35 KC Yost
Good.

00:05:35 Omar Garcia
A recruiter called me one day and said, "Hey, we've got a startup oil and gas trade association, and it's called Steer." Said, "Let me get this straight. You've got an organization that has the name of a cow and it's a startup. Tell me more about it." And so what happened was the largest oil and gas producers, the EMP companies in the Eagle Ford Shale as the Eagle Ford Shale was starting to ramp up as y'all remember, the ramp up was in 2009, 2010, then it really started in earnest in 2012. And the recruiter said, "We need somebody that can go out and work with the communities on economic development, community relations, messaging, government affairs." Went through the interview process and the next thing I know, I got the job.

00:06:18 KC Yost
Sweet.

00:06:18 Omar Garcia
And so on my day one, my board chairman says, "Here's the organization with the name of a cow, here's the banking account, go get it done." No office, no staff, no supplies. That was my day one. And so I'm proud to say that after six years, we built a very strong organization. So I was CEO from 2012 to 2018, and then the Port of Corpus Christi came calling and Sean Strawbridge, the former CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi, he quartered me for about two years and I didn't want to move to Corpus. I was very happy in San Antonio, as he likes to say, I left him at the altar twice, and he called me a third time, made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and I've been at the Port now over six years.

00:06:59 KC Yost
Six years. So what does an external affairs officer do? That is such a frigging cool title. So almost like an Executive Director of an economic development corporation.

00:07:13 Omar Garcia
So the Chief External Affairs Officer is the very cool title, in case you didn't know that about that. It's a fancy title for, I oversee communications and marketing, community relations, we serve a two county area and about 18 different communities and government affairs, state and federal lobbying. And so that's how the job started. And I did that for about two years. And then one day, Sean comes to me and says, "We want you to grow your role and use your economic development experience. Why don't we give you commercial and business development?" So I've been doing commercial business development for the last four years on top of my other three responsibilities. So it's been a lot of fun working with the different communities. It's been a lot of fun traveling the world promoting it, not only the port, but the oil and gas industry and the South Texas region for further investment.

00:08:01 KC Yost
Yeah. Well, fantastic background. Thanks very much, and so tickled to have you here.

00:08:06 Omar Garcia
Thank you, KC.

00:08:07 KC Yost
So we talked prior to the broadcast, my time down in the Corpus area, Bishop and Kingsville and all of that. And it's probably been 40 years since I was on River Road. And so I know that the Port of Corpus Christi has done a great deal of growth over the last 30 or 40 years. And specifically in the last 10 or 12 years, there's been tremendous growth. So can you talk about the port and how it's important to Texas and the global economy, knowing full well that I'm going to ask you about the local economy next.

00:08:47 Omar Garcia
Absolutely. Had you been down in Corpus in 2015, you probably would've said nothing's changed. But there was one little that happened in December of 2015 that changed the fortune for Corpus, the Port of Corpus and the region. The export ban was lifted, the export ban was lifted in December of 2015. That one action coming out of D. C., that one legislative action changed the trajectory of the region, changed everything for the Port of Corpus Christi. We became a port that was really known as a small state domestic port, lot of refining capacity, which we still do. And we love Valero, we love Citco, we love Flint Hills. We still have those three refiners at the Port of Corpus Christi, but they were our bread and butter. They were our largest customers. Now we are the largest energy gateway in United States, number one for crude exports, number one for LNG. We have 65 billion of new investment going into the Port of Corpus Christi.

00:09:45 KC Yost
Wow.

00:09:45 Omar Garcia
And here's a stat that I love to say because it resonates well with people and it's also shocking. We're the third largest exporter of crude in the world.

00:09:55 KC Yost
I'm sorry, say that again.

00:09:56 Omar Garcia
Third largest exporter of crude in the world. That is behind ports in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Think about that. In the world, little Corpus Christi, third largest exporter of crude in the world.

00:10:13 KC Yost
That's impressive. That's impressive. Very impressive. So we talk about the global market and how now we can do these exports and everything's going great. And we talked about state, now you've got the coastal bend, you guys provide a lot of economic stability for the coastal bend, right?

00:10:31 Omar Garcia
Make no mistake, the Corpus Christi region is industry friendly. As I mentioned, 65 billion of new investment in the last eight years. The region had never seen such growth. Prior to that, Corpus had been a very sleepy, fishing, touristy town, which it still is. You had a lot of job growth in the government sector, NAS, Corpus Christi, the Corpus Christi, army Depot. Those were the main drivers of the economy along with the tourism industry. And then you had a steady growth of industry with the refiners, but not like we see today, not a $15 billion facility with Cheniere to export liquefied natural gas, the ethylene cracker facility that Exxon SABIC put in the region. Those are just two huge products that I can point to. But when you look at 65 billion of new investment, there also came thousands of jobs. 95,000 new jobs in the region in the last six years. Those are job numbers that most regions would be envious to have in a lifetime. We've experienced that in the last six years.

00:11:32 KC Yost
That's amazing. That's amazing, and the future looks bright.

00:11:41 Omar Garcia
The future looks bright. I think Rudy alluded to the election. I think that the new administration that takes office in January is going to be very friendly to the oil and gas industry. On any given day, we export between 2. 2 To 3 million barrels of crude every day. So we have 60% of the market share in the United States, and we don't take that lightly. With the new administration, I think you're going to see additional, additional drilling, additional capacity come online. That's going to bring challenges for us, but I think we can step up to the plate and help with that. Because you look at Texas, you've got four major pipes that are pointed from the Permian Basin to the Port of Corpus Christi, 90% of those pipes are full. Those four pipes are 90% capacities. This is a midstream group, you know what that means, right?

00:12:29 KC Yost
Mm-hmm.

00:12:29 Omar Garcia
We have very little more room for growth. We've had some major announcements on one pipeline, the Gray Oak, that Enbridge would increase their production or their commitment for another Eighty-thousand barrels per day. So there's a little room for growth, but not much.

00:12:44 KC Yost
How does the pipeline capacity compare to what you guys can handle at the Port?

00:12:50 Omar Garcia
Man, that's a great question, KC. We've got plenty of tourmaline capacity, we've got plenty of dock space. What we need is more steel in the ground pointed at Corpus Christi. If you want your barrel of crude that's explored, that's being produced in the Permian Basin, you want it to hit the international market, international waters, you point that barrel to the port of Corpus Christi. And make no mistake, the ports in Texas compete against each other. We compete against Houston every day against Freeport, against Beaumont, against Brownsville. We are left to our own devices here, in the state of Texas. There's 19 seaports in Texas. You look at other states, for example, Georgia, that is a state-run port association. All the ports in Georgia report to the state here in Texas. We are all run it at the local level. So that creates competition, which is a great thing, but Houston is one of our largest competitors when it comes to crude exports.

00:13:43 KC Yost
Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. So let's talk about some milestones and some of the great accomplishments. You talked about being the third largest crude oil export port in the world right now. You guys have other milestones, other criteria that you've set regarding tonnage, right?

00:14:02 Omar Garcia
Absolutely. As I mentioned, prior to 2015, we were really known as a refining port with Valero, Citco, and Flint Hills. And by the way, they're still doing great. So again, we love those three customers, but our tonnage has grown from a little port of 80 million tons to over 200 million tons the last two years.

00:14:25 KC Yost
Wow.

00:14:25 Omar Garcia
Every quarter we continue to set records. I think this year was the first quarter, I think it was the second quarter where we didn't break a record. And I got to go back, I might have to correct myself on that, but this is the first year that we had one quarter that we didn't break the previous record from the previous quarter. But again, a lot of that is contributed to the oil and gas industry. The port's main focus is to have a waterway, to have a port that's open for business, to maintain the channel, to maintain our docks and our infrastructure. The growth, the 65 billion of investment, our tonnage records, that has contributed to you the oil and gas industry, you midstream companies. We couldn't do this without you. It's our responsibility to make sure that we have a competitive port so you continue to invest in our region, invest in our gateway, and continue to see the records that we've had at the Port of Corpus Christi.

00:15:14 KC Yost
So it's like a chicken and an egg type scenario where you do things. So what is it? If you build it, they will come. Right?

00:15:25 Omar Garcia
Right.

00:15:26 KC Yost
And so let's start talking about the channel. You mentioned it here just a minute ago, and you and I talked, I guess it was last week, that I was heavily involved with relocating pipelines in the Houston Ship Channel 25 years ago. And we had a consortium of directional drillers, marine and onshore contractors, and I was the project manager on that job, and we relocated sixty-some-odd pipelines across that. You guys are doing the same thing.

00:16:00 Omar Garcia
Absolutely.

00:16:00 KC Yost
And you're in that process right now of deepening and widening your channel. And I know, at least from the midstream side, the challenges of working with the Corps and with the Port of Houston getting things squared away and logistics and all of that. This is a tremendous undertaking you guys are under. So walk us through where you are and where you plan on being with this process, okay?

00:16:26 Omar Garcia
So our channel improvement project, which is to deepen and widen our ship channel, is the biggest project in the Port's 100-year history. This was a project that started in 1990. Project started in 1990. What it was was to take the depth of the channel, at that time, from 47 feet to 54. And you have to remember that the channel is federally owned. The Army Corps of engineers and the Coast Guard run the channels. We own the land, the submerged land and the uplands on both sides of the channel. In some cases, private industry owns it, but the channel is run by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard.

00:17:02 KC Yost
Right.

00:17:02 Omar Garcia
And so when we look to dredge and make these improvements, we've got to work with the federal government. The state has a very small role in this. And so since 1990, we had to get authorization from Congress through the Water Resource Development Act or WRDA, and we had to go get funding, most importantly. So again, 1990 is when this project started. We didn't get the first dollar until 2017 or 2018, Trump's first year in office. The first dollar did not flow on a project that started in 1990 until Trump's first year in office. So this project touched Bush 43, it touched Clinton, it touched Obama, it touched Trump, and it touched Biden. Think about that. It has taken that long to finalize this project. So the first dollar came in-

00:17:54 KC Yost
So excuse me. So what you're saying is it was on a fast track at the government.

00:17:58 Omar Garcia
It was definitely on the fast track.

00:17:59 KC Yost
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

00:18:00 Omar Garcia
I think you alluded to it that it's always challenging working with the federal government. They've made great strides, but it's always difficult working with federal entities.

00:18:09 KC Yost
Yep.

00:18:09 Omar Garcia
So when we got the first money under Trump, it was at $13 million. His second budget, we were waiting for a $100 million. Total project cost was $680 million, of which the Port put in 240 million. So we had about a third cost share. We wanted to put that money into the channel. By the way, we didn't assess a fee for our customers. We took on that responsibility because when the export ban was lifted, we quickly wanted to show the market that if you pointed your barrel and your steel in a pipeline to Corpus, you were going to have a deeper draft to load more product on ships. So when Trump didn't get reelected, we went into the Biden administration, his first year in office, we didn't get any money. We were still short about $120 to $150 million. First year we got no money. It was a concern. Were we going to have a channel to nowhere? What was going to happen with only a section of the channel that a depth of 54? I will tell you, we went on a very aggressive marketing campaign. We met with the administration, our former CEO, Sean Strawbridge, did a tremendous job at everybody been a Sara Week probably, I'm sure you've been a Sara Week. You've heard about it. He took on several interviews, but what changed it for us was a little thing. It was a very unfortunate incident, it's still ongoing, was the war in Ukraine. When Russia invaded Ukraine, we told the administration, if you want to get more energy produced in the United States, energy produced in Texas to our allies, help us deepen our channel

00:19:39 KC Yost
There you go.

00:19:40 Omar Garcia
And so we finally had close out under the Biden Administration. So we're very happy to report we have project close out. We're completely funded. This product started three miles out into the Gulf of Mexico to the end of our viola turning basin, which is 36 miles. It was broken up into four phases. So phase one from Harbor Island, the Ingleside is complete, you have 54. From Harbor Island to just past Ingleside is phase two. That is complete. Phase three is from the middle of the bay to the chemical turning basin in the Port. We're finalizing that. And phase four will be complete Q2 of next year. So after 30 plus years, we will finally have a channel depth at 54 feet. Sometime, once we do final maps, final sweeping of the channel to make sure it's all at 54, we're probably thinking complete channel depth at 54 Q3, maybe Q4 of next year.

00:20:37 KC Yost
Okay. So you all heard it here first, and we'll hold him to that. I think you guys need to plan on having Omar come back this time next year so he can say, "Yeah, we got it done." Good for you.

00:20:55 Omar Garcia
Absolutely. It's a huge accomplishment, not only for the Port, but for the region. It's going to maintain and ensure that we maintain our market share, but also, it's also going to attract new investment and new jobs having a depth of 54 feet. Once it's complete, we will have the deepest draft port along the Texas Gulf coast.

00:21:13 KC Yost
Excellent. Excellent. So that leads into the next conversation because we've talked about oil exports and we've talked about the deepening and widening of the channel and all that kind of stuff, and your competition with other ports around. So most ports in the United States can handle Suezmax tankers, right? You have the capability of handling VLCCs, right?

00:21:39 Omar Garcia
Absolutely.

00:21:40 KC Yost
So let's talk about Suezmax and VLCCs and what that competitive advantage gives to the Port of Corpus Christi. Okay?

00:21:49 Omar Garcia
So a VLCC stands for a Very Large Crude Carrier. It's one of the largest ships that holds crude. It can hold 2 million barrels. In order to fully load or have a fully laden VLCC, you need a channel depth of 75 feet. Wait a minute, you just talked about 54 Omar, right? 75 feet is what it takes to fully load a VLCC. There's only one port in America that can fully load a VLCC, and of all places, it's Long Beach, California. Long Beach, California can fully load a VLCC. The great state of Texas cannot. So at a depth of 54 or even at 47, a VLCC could come in, you could load at 47, depending on the spec of the crude, you could load about 1. 2. At a depth of 54, you can now load about 1. 5. But what happens at that point is you have to take another smaller ship, go out into the deep water in the Gulf of Mexico, those ships park next to each other, and you do what they call reverse lightering. The smaller ship tops off the bigger ship. So that's going to help with economies of scale being a load more product on the VLCC, you mentioned the Suezmax, KC. The Suezmax, at a depth of 54, you can just about fully load a Suezmax at a million barrels. So that's going to make it competitive, not only for our docks at Ingleside, but for the docks at the inner harbor to fully load a Suezmax at a million barrels.

00:23:07 KC Yost
So the idea is for you to have the capability of handling VLCCs?

00:23:12 Omar Garcia
Absolutely. Knowing that we will never be able to fully load a VLCC, but even adding an additional 300,000 to 400,000 barrels in the VLCC makes us competitive, will help us allow us to keep our market share.

00:23:25 KC Yost
Okay. So not a question on the list, and I'll catch you. I hope I don't catch you off guard.

00:23:32 Omar Garcia
No.

00:23:32 KC Yost
Offshore mooring as an option. Is the port pursuing any options here for offshore mooring.

00:23:39 Omar Garcia
Absolutely, K, that's a great question. You've got about four projects to do the offshore mooring or the offshore buoy projects, one of them has its permit. It's the enterprise project off the Port of Houston or Galveston, if you will. It's interesting to see whether or not those happen. The Port of Corpus Christi is working with Phillips 66 on an offshore project on offshore buoy project, as well, too. I mentioned pipeline constraints. We've got limited room on our pipelines to grow. You've got some capacity in Houston. So it just depends how much more production, how much more can we squeeze out of the Permian Basin on a daily basis to justify that large investment to do an offshore buoy project. But to answer your question, we monitor that, we've got our own project with Phillips 66, and the market will dictate whether or not one of those gets built.

00:24:33 KC Yost
Outstanding. Outstanding. Well, good. That's good. That's good. Change gears a little bit, let's talk about energy transition initiatives. What does the Port of Corpus Christi have going on?

00:24:45 Omar Garcia
Absolutely. One of the things that people don't realize about energy transition is how much the oil and gas industry is involved in that. It is the oil and gas industry that's going to lead the way in the decarbonization efforts, and that's something we should all be proud of. It's a huge thing for the environment. I like to say is that, when you have all these environmentalists pushing back on us, well, I like to think that the oil and gas industry are environmentalists, as well, too. We do a hell of a job in protecting the environment, and I don't think we get enough credit for it. We're huge. The industry plays a huge role in protecting the environment. But when you look at the energy transition space and hydrogen and ammonia in carbon capture, what does that all mean? Why is the Port playing a role in that? When you look at the port, 85% of our revenue is directly connected to the oil and gas industry, and that's a great thing, and that's going to be our future for the next several decades. But as you look at what the world is wanting, they're wanting a different fuel source. This is, we're living through a world in a time where I like to call it not energy transition, but it's energy addition. We need all forms of energy, whether it's traditional oil and gas, LNG, wind, solar, hydrogen, we need it all. The world is growing. Texas is growing. We need all forms of energy.

00:26:10 KC Yost
So you're checking the box, all the above.

00:26:13 Omar Garcia
Absolutely, all the above.

00:26:14 KC Yost
Good.

00:26:14 Omar Garcia
And so hydrogen and ammonia are the next sexy things, right? Everybody wants that in Europe, everybody wants it in Asia. Well, guess who's going to produce it? Great State of Texas. And you've got a couple of forms of hydrogen. You have green hydrogen and you have blue hydrogen. Blue is going to require natural gas, green is more wind and solar. And so the Port of Corpus is looking at some of these products and we're looking at it as another commodity to export. What are we going to export other than LNG and crude refined products, LPGs, what does the future hold in the next five to 10 years? And we think it's going to be hydrogen and ammonia. We think that's going to be the next commodity that's going to advance what the port is doing, create billions of dollars to more of new investment and thousands of more jobs. So when Europe says, "Hey, we want hydrogen, it doesn't matter if it's green or blue." Asia says, "We want hydrogen," they're looking to the State of Texas to do that. And so you've had a couple of projects announced in the Houston and Beaumont area. We're still working with some very large projects in Corpus on the hydrogen side. Will be interesting to see what happens with the administration, what kind of push that is. But again, the oil and gas industry is very much involved in the hydrogen and the ammonia and the carbon capture. We've got a project with Howard energy to do carbon capture. Howard Energy has leased 13,000 acres of pore space at the Port of Corpus Christi on some land that we own to do carbon capture. So they're still working, doing their due diligence. So again, the energy transition is real. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, but just know that the oil and gas industry has a large and a great involvement in the energy transition space.

00:28:00 KC Yost
And the idea of all the above is such a great attribute, or at least plug in into this. Caterpillar Oil and Gas, by the way, shout out to my sponsor. Caterpillar Oil and Gas has a Gen two kit that they're actually putting on a lot of their engines to actually be able to use dual fuel. So if diesel is not available or if they want to cut back on it, they can use natural gas or propane or other forms of energy to cut down on the emissions and still get the same productivity.

00:28:34 Omar Garcia
Absolutely. Because I'm not a fan of the word energy transition. Okay? We know that it is energy addition. We know that the traditional oil and gas is not going to go away anytime soon. The demand, domestically, may be slowing down a bit, but not globally. You have emerging economies coming up. They're the ones that are hungry for Texas produced crude, Texas produced natural gas. So we know that our growth is going to continue on the export side. But when you look at the additions of wind and solar and hydrogen, those are things that we are also going to play a role in because everybody should be playing a role in the decarbonization efforts. We were recently awarded a $105 billion grant from the EPA to work with our tug companies. Our tug companies are going to have electric tugs. Pretty exciting stuff. Again, just addition to what we're doing now. So we're going to have three electric tugs and some electric forklifts as the forms of decarbonization and working with the federal government to make sure that if the federal government's going to give that money away, why not this region? Why not the Port of Corpus?

00:29:35 KC Yost
Exactly. Exactly. Let's try it, make sure that it works, but by all means, let's be on the forefront of any of these opportunities that are out there.

00:29:46 Omar Garcia
Absolutely.

00:29:47 KC Yost
So we're running out of time. Great conversation.

00:29:50 Omar Garcia
Dang, that was fast.

00:29:50 KC Yost
Yeah, I've enjoyed the conversation, it's been great. Is there anything else you wanted to add? I think you wanted to talk about water real quick.

00:29:57 Omar Garcia
Yeah. We often talk about this. When you look at what's going to stop the growth, what's going to stop it? Now, when I say growth, I'm talking about South Texas. Everybody likes to talk about the Texas Triangle, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio. How about the South Texas Diamond? San Antonio, Laredo, Corpus and the Valley? That that's where I would, you want to focus on our growth, and there's a lot of discussions about how these regions come together, but so when I talk about the region, I'm talking San Antonio South. One of the biggest impediments that we have for growth is water. We're in a drought in Corpus. We only get to water our lawns every two weeks. And once the lake levels that we have of Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon are at 20%, we're going to get curtailed even more. And we're there, guys. We're at 20% right now, as of two days ago. So what does that mean? When you start curtailing water, you start asking the industry to curtail their water use. So imagine the ripple effect of that now. If the industry cannot be producing at capacity or near capacity where they want to be, that's going to start to impact our trading partners around the world and our allies. If they can't get the volumes that they're used to because we don't have a water solution, that is bad for South Texas, that is bad for the global economy, and that is bad for the State of Texas. We have to find a water solution, and that is going to be desalination. The Port of Corpus Christi owns land, what we called Harbor Island, right on the Gulf of Mexico. It's a great place to do desalination. The city of Corpus Christi, making no mistake, is the water provider for the region. We're working hand in hand with the city of Corpus Christi. We're trying to find a solution, but what has happened is we have been met with such resistance from the anti-oil and gas, anti-industry movement. They figured out if you stop water, you stop oil and gas, you stop industry growth.

00:31:47 KC Yost
Sure.

00:31:48 Omar Garcia
Right? So it has taken us years to get those permits, but water remains is challenged. I'm happy to say we're working hand in hand with the city of Corpus. We will find a solution, we're just a couple of years late.

00:32:01 KC Yost
Keep pushing on, keep pushing on.

00:32:03 Omar Garcia
Absolutely.

00:32:03 KC Yost
Please. Please keep pushing on. Hey, thanks so much for coming on.

00:32:07 Omar Garcia
I appreciate you, brother.

00:32:07 KC Yost
Thank you so much.

00:32:08 Omar Garcia
I appreciate it.

00:32:09 KC Yost
And thanks to all of you at the San Antonio Pipeliners Association for letting us come over from the thriving metropolis of Katy, Texas to do this podcast, and it should be released next Wednesday or Thursday. Be looking for it. Okay? So if anyone would like to learn more about what's happening at the Port of Corpus Christi, you can find them on the web at PortofCC.com. PortofCC.com. Thanks to our audience here, at the San Antonio Pipeline Association, and all of you for tuning into this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast, sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for podcast topics, feel free to email me at kc.yost@oggn.com. I also want to thank my producer, Anastasia Willis and Duff, and everyone at the Oil and Gas Global Network for making this podcast possible. Find out more about other OGGN podcasts at Oggn.com. This is KC Yost saying goodbye for now. Have a great week and keep that energy flowing through the pipeline.

00:33:22 Speaker 2
Thanks for listening to OGGN, the world's largest and most listened to podcast network for the oil and energy industry. If you like this show, leave us a review and then go to oggn.com to learn about all our other shows, and don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. This show has been a production of the Oil and Gas Global Network.