Valero Buys Former Houston Refinery for $320.5 Million; Strata9 Maps 62 Valero Wells

Valero Energy Corporation agreed to acquire the former Houston refinery of LyondellBasell Industries for $320.5 million, subject to closing adjustments, the company said on Oct. 30. State filings compiled by Strata9, a Houston company, list 62 Texas well records under Valero operator names across 25 counties.

The deal

Valero said its wholly owned subsidiary, Valero Refining-Texas, L.P., signed a definitive agreement to buy all outstanding equity interests of LYB Houston Hub Holdings LLC from a LyondellBasell subsidiary. LYB Houston indirectly owns an approximately 700-acre facility that operated as a petroleum refinery, next to Valero's own Houston refinery on the Houston Ship Channel.

Valero said it expects to initially restart 165,000 barrels per day of light sweet crude processing capacity by year-end 2027, and that the purchase also gives it the option to later invest in high-complexity, heavy sour crude processing. Closing is subject to customary conditions, including expiration or termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period, and is expected by the end of 2026. Lane Riggs, Valero's chairman, chief executive and president, called the deal a chance to expand on the Gulf Coast "at a fraction of replacement value." Valero operates 14 petroleum refineries in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., with combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.0 million barrels per day, according to the company.

Valero on the Strata9 map

Strata9 data carry seven operator names that begin with Valero, from Valero Producing Co. to Valero Transmission, L. P. Of the 62 well records filed under those names in Texas, 37 are listed as permitted, 14 as dry holes, six as plugged, three as active, one as cancelled, and one as active with no production on file.

The operator name Valero Refining - Texas, L.P., as it appears in state filings, holds 10 permitted records in Nueces County, all on leases named Rectifier. Valero Transmission, L. P. accounts for 20 permitted records across 13 counties, all on leases with Rectifier in the name.

Closer to the Ship Channel, the records are older. In Harris County, Strata9 shows one Valero Producing Co. dry hole, on the Christian Unit lease. In Jefferson County, Valero Terminaling & Distrib. Co is listed on 10 records on the E. Thomas et al lease, including two active storage wells and one active injection or disposal well, plus four plugged oil wells.

Houston's well record

The refinery sits in Harris County, where Strata9 maps 12,793 oil and gas wells of record. Of those, 5,618, or 43.9%, are listed as plugged and 2,069 as active with no production on file. The county's wells span 791 operators and 1,792 leases, according to Strata9 data.

Across Texas, Strata9 data list 1,378,668 wells of record in all 254 counties. Strata9 covers 33 U.S. states, six Canadian provinces and territories, and the Gulf of America.

How to check it

The Strata9 Oil and Gas map lets users open a well card for status, type, operator, and lease, and filter by status, including Producing, Plugged, and Permitted. The same view is available for Jefferson County, and on phones through the Strata9 Android app on Google Play. More market coverage is in the Strata9 newsroom.

Strata9 is based in Houston. The map opens at strata9.exchange/app.