BEAUMONT, Texas — Construction has officially started on a new underground helium site at the Golden Triangle Storage facility in Beaumont.
In September, Jefferson County Commissioners and Beaumont City Council members approved tax incentives for the project.
Council members unanimously voted to approve the industrial development agreement with Golden Triangle Storage, LLC. to begin the four-phase development expansion project.
The $280 million project includes two new salt dome natural gas storage caverns.
The site exists in the Spindletop field that helped put Southeast Texas on the map more than a century ago.
Golden Triangle Storage Plant Manager Joshua Haeggquist says that the new underground helium storage site will also now put Beaumont on the map, on an international scale.
"We're in the first phase of construction. We've begun some civil and mechanical construction," he said.
The caverns will hold four million barrels in volume and will be twice as large as the Empire State Building.
"We will drill the cavern, then we will set the surface equipment for the cavern, we will leach the cavern, and then we will put the cavern into service," Haeggquist said.
Haeggquist says helium storage is crucial for some of the top industries in the US, such as Space-X and NASA.
"Since it's a non-renewable resource, and it is something that can just kind of go out into space, having a place where it is packed tight and not escaping into the atmosphere, for future use, is vital to the helium market," he said.
Beaumont Mayor Roy West previously told 12News he's super excited about the project.
"We are well suited for it, we have the workforce for it, and it helps feed our economic engine," he said.
When it comes to safety, Haeggquist assured the surrounding public will not be affected
"With the way that the mechanical integrity is with these caverns, there's very minimal public risk," he said.
This project will bring more than 300 construction jobs and 17 permanent jobs.
"This is something that we think is going to impact the community just in such a positive way and it's going to be a great thing," Haeggquist said.
The project is slated to be complete in early 2025 and plans are in motion for more natural gas storage -- at the same site.
But why store helium underground?
University of Houston Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dr. Don Van Nieuwenhuise previously told 12News this method of natural gas storage is both cost efficient and safe.
"The subsurface of course you have less danger of having temperature issues. Most of the salt masses that we have in caverns formed inside these fault masses, or salt domes, are a little bit more friable and malleable, I might say, so that the issue of fracturing is less of a problem," Nieuwenhuise said.
Jefferson County Commissioners have also signed onto the project.
"They use those caverns that can't be permeated by whatever they're storing in there to warehouse certain materials it can be anything from oil to natural gas and in this case it's going to be, among other things, helium. We're looking forward to this because helium is a very valuable product," Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said.