Dallas-based independent petroleum refiner Placid Refining announced Thursday that it will relocate its headquarters to Louisiana.

As Rob Beadle, president of Placid Refining, explained in a statement on March 23, the move will enable “growing our operations and centralizing in Louisiana,” per The Advocate.

Placid Refining bought the refinery located in Port Allen, Louisiana, in 1975. The company refines roughly 75,000 barrels of crude oil a day at this facility.

By moving its headquarters across the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge, Beadle explained in the release, the company’s leadership “can better support our operations here at home.”

These operations include updates to modernize the Port Allen refinery, which will take about five years, as well as renovations to an office building in downtown Baton Rouge that will house the future headquarters.

Overall, $66 million is being invested into the endeavor, with the state of Louisiana offering Placid Refining a performance-based tax credit of up to $500,000.

While the Texas leadership is expected to relocate, 20 new jobs and 88 indirect jobs will also be created in Louisiana. The 215 positions at the Port Allen facility will be retained.

The plan to move to Louisiana has been in the works for years, as Tyler Gray, a spokesman for Placid Refining, told The Advocate.

Part of the reason for the move could have to do with the stifling effect that Dallas’ regulations, crime rate, and homelessness problem can have on businesses, which has pushed companies out of the city to surrounding areas or even to other states.

In January, Placid Refining purchased the 19,376-square-foot office building it plans to renovate for nearly $4.8 million. It is located at 402 N. Fourth St. in Baton Rouge and includes a 0.4-acre parking lot.

Whitney Hoffman Sayal, the executive director of the Downtown Development District, told The Advocate that Placid Refining’s move will be a boost to the city center, which saw a decline during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To have a corporate headquarters move here speaks to the fact that downtown is still the center of commerce,” Sayal said.

Similarly, the company’s investment in upgrading its facility is a positive sign for the state’s refining industry and the overall economy.

Greg Upton, interim executive director of the Center for Energy Studies at LSU, told The Advocate that while profit margins for refineries have recently improved, they tanked during the pandemic.

Two local refineries ran into trouble and were closed: In 2020, a facility in Convent, Louisiana, owned by Shell was shuttered. It will be converted into a sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel production facility. In 2021, a refinery owned by Phillips 66 in Plaquemines Parish was closed and later sold in 2022 to Harvest Midstream. Harvest will use the refinery as a terminal to expand its operations in transporting and storing crude oil.

As for Placid Refining, its operations supply high-quality but affordable transportation fuels to various industries in locales stretching from Texas to Maryland. The U.S. Department of Defense is one of its buyers of kerosene-based jet fuel.

The company strives to meet customer demands while committing to the safety of its employees and adhering to environmental requirements.