Oilfield services giant Halliburton has selected north Lafayette over a pool of state and international competitors for a major manufacturing facility that’s expected to create 150 direct jobs with an annual payroll of $8 million, plus benefits — that equates to an average $53,000 a year. Halliburton is investing $65 million in the project and expects to begin construction by July of this year, creating an additional 250 construction jobs.
The manufacturing facility is locating on Pont des Mouton across from the Northpark Technology Center; the company has signed a purchase agreement on the 40-acre tract with Lafayette businessman Larry Leger.
Louisiana Economic Development anticipates that the 150 direct jobs will create another 357 indirect jobs, generating $4.4 million in additional tax revenue over the next decade.
Just after 2 p.m. Tuesday, Gov. Bobby Jindal joined Halliburton Senior Vice President Marc Edwards and a slew of Lafayette-area officials and dignitaries to unveil plans for the 200,000-square-foot facility, which will produce complex machined components for oilfield service operations with state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment. The facility will also produce value-added services, such as heat treatment, coating and other specialty operations, and will have assembling and product testing operations performed before shipping components to oil and gas producers around the world.
Edwards, who trained with Halliburton in Lafayette 26 years ago after earning a mechanical engineering degree in the UK and went on to become a senior VP, likened the jobs that will be created here to the type of manufacturing positions in the aerospace industry, calling them “high-tech, high paying.” Giving props to state and local officials, including Lafayette Consolidated Government personnel in various departments — all of whom worked for about eight months on a secret project they knew only as "Prospect Dreidel" — he said Lafayette was chosen over a number of states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi, as well as sites in Brazil, Europe, West Africa and Asia. “We put a lot of effort into [this decision],” he said. “Lafayette has won this particular deal here, competing on a global basis.”
Edwards thanked LED and the Lafayette Economic Development Authority for their assistance “in helping us decide that Lafayette is the best location for our new facility.” He cited Lafayette’s strong workforce and economy, access to major transportation zones and the Louisiana FastStart program to help hire and train our employees as key to helping Halliburton expand its business.
To help secure this project, LED offered the company an incentive package, including performance-based financial assistance of $2 million for site acquisition and infrastructure from the Louisiana Rapid Response Fund and a workforce program from Louisiana FastStart. Halliburton also will take advantage of the state’s Quality Jobs and Industrial Tax Exemption programs.
“With more than 900 oil-and-gas-related businesses in Lafayette and many more throughout Acadiana, this region is the hub for energy production and services in the Southeastern U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico,” said LEDA’s Gregg Gothreaux. “Our community provides an industry-savvy environment and a workforce that is highly skilled, making Lafayette very attractive to energy companies.”
Halliburton employs 863 people in Lafayette Parish, about 1,200 in Acadiana and almost 3,000 throughout the state. Its nearly 60,000 employees work in 80 countries.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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