Texas will provide $1 million to close a deal with Ascend Performance Materials Texas Inc. to build a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) facility near Houston, Gov. Rick Perry said.

The facility, which would be built in Alvin, in Brazoria County, would create 100 jobs and $1.2 billion in capital investment and “further strengthens the Gulf Coast’s economy and chemical production industry,” Perry said.

Execution of the state’s agreement is contingent upon finalization of a local incentive package. Funding came through the Texas Enterprise Fund, which has invested nearly $500 million into a variety of projects since it was created in 2003, including most recently a steel pipe manufacturing plant in Matagorda County (see Daily GPI, Feb. 19).

Houston-based researchers last year characterized shale gas as the “magic bullet” the U.S. petrochemical industry needed to make a full recovery from a decade of economic stagnation (see Shale Daily, July 19, 2012). And European chemical and energy service companies are benefiting from U.S. shale gas development and resulting low natural gas prices (see Shale Daily, Dec. 11, 2012).

Enterprise Products Partners LP said recently that it has sold out capacity at its planned 1.65 billion pounds/year PDH facility, which is scheduled to begin operation on the Texas Gulf Coast during the third quarter of 2015 (see Shale Daily, Jan. 10). In anticipation of a continuing decrease in supplies of propylene, Enterprise is in talks with additional customers that could lead to the development of additional PDH capacity, the company said.

Houston-based Ascend has five manufacturing facilities in the United States.