HOUSTON - Total has officially inaugurated production at the company’s new high-purity special fluids facility in Bayport, TX. The ribbon cutting represents the completion of a $100M investment by the global integrated energy producer and leading international oil and gas organization.

Total’s Bayport hydro de-aromatization (HDA) plant, the second in the world and modeled on a similar facility in France, will produce a range of 40 different high-purity special fluids for customer use across a wide spectrum of industries including pharmaceuticals, crop protection, water treatment, printing inks, coatings and cosmetics. With an annual production capacity of 250KT, the Bayport facility will also produce synthetic biodegradable fluids for on- and off-shore drilling.

“Our new Bayport operation illustrates Total’s commitment to our business in the United States,” said Philippe Boisseau, Member of the Executive Committee of Total and President of Marketing & Services. “We will work closely with the Total refining facility in Port Arthur, which will provide some of the feedstock required to produce the high-purity special fluids our customers want and need, as well as the Total Polyethylene facility at Bayport with whom we share the site.”

Boisseau continued, “The innovative, clean technology we will provide to our customers from Bayport is the result of a concerted and combined effort of several Total global business activities, including Refining and Chemicals and Marketing and Services, with knowledge and expertise transfer from engineers in our plant in France.”

The Bayport HDA plant utilizes a catalytic reaction process that, when combined with high pressure and distillation, enables the production of very specific high-purity fluids, odorless, colorless, stable and with ultra-low aromatic contents. These high-purity fluids are customized to meet the needs of a wide variety of industrial applications.