From Trade & Industry Development and staff reports
Highly Innovative Fuels USA, Matagorda County, was chosen by Trade & Industry Development for its 2023 Corporate Investment/Community Impact Awards (CiCi Awards).
Trade and Industry Development is a leading publication dedicated to site selection for businesses.
Trade & Industry Development’s CiCi Awards honor 30 projects - 15 in the “Corporate Investment” category and 15 in the “Community Impact” category.
HIF Innovative Fuels was chosen for the “Corporate Investment” category.
All the winners are projects that were announced in 2022.
This is the 17th year the publication has honored projects from all over the U.S. that bring extensive capital investment or influential community impact – or both - to help shape the communities in which they are located, and in which they continue to develop and grow.
The Corporate Investment and Community Impact (CiCi) Awards were created to reward companies that are making a difference by investing, locating and building relationships in communities, as well as the economic development agencies that have facilitated their decisions.
The recipients of these awards are recognized for their creation of new jobs, retention of current jobs and generation of economic growth.
The location of a new facility or the expansion of an existing one can have a profoundly positive effect on a community, even if the investment is modest.
A Texas industry has to be nominated by Office of the Texas Governor Texas Economic Development to be considered for the CiCi Awards, said Mike Ferdinand, executive director of Matagorda County Economic Development Corporation.
The following about HIF was included in Trade and Industry Development’s coverage of its 2023 CiCi awards.
eFuels are an important element of sustainability goals.
These fuels are produced with electricity from renewable sources, water and carbon dioxide and represent a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels.
Highly Innovative Fuels Global is a world-leading eFuels company that develops projects to convert hydrogen made using low-cost renewable power into carbon neutral liquid eFuels that can be transported and used in vehicle without any modification in to existing engines or the infrastructure on which they depend.
In April 2022, Highly Innovative Fuels Global announced that it had chosen Matagorda County Texas as the location of the first industrial scale eFuels facilities in North America.
With plans to make a $6 billion capital investment, HIF will create more than 125 permanent operations jobs in the region.
Construction of the site is expected to begin in 2023 and produce eFuels from the facility by 2026.
Matagorda County has long been a state and national leaders in energy development as it is home to one of Texas’ two nuclear plants.
The carbon-neutral gasoline is produced by combining carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere with green hydrogen from renewable wind power.
According to HIF USA CEO Renato Pereira, “Carbon-neutral eFuels represent the energy sectors next frontier, enabling renewable resources to fuel our mobile economy.
Matagorda County economies will be boosted by construction and operation of the HIF USA eFuels facility.
Serving as the flagship of HIG Global U.S. Production, Matagorda County economic development teams have already begun to prepare for secondary and tertiary supplies seeking to locate in Matagorda County.
As a result of the project win the Wharton County Junior College campus in Bay City is seeking to expand coursework and degree programs to accommodate the operation and construction jobs that will be needed in the future.
“There State of Texas has long been the champion of energy in the United States,” said Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald.
“I am proud to say our economic development team here in Matagorda County along with the ever-present support of the Governor and his office, have brought to fruition a new energy sector that will put Matagorda County on the map.
I’m proud of the work Matagorda and HIF team displayed throughout the process and could not be happier they selected Matagorda County for their flagship.”