HOUSTON (FOX 26) -
Houston's skyline is about to change, fueled by the strength of renewed U.S. oil production.
bhpbilliton has announced it will break ground, this year, on a new 30-story tower that will be built next to an existing building in the Galleria.
The Australian company's petroleum headquarters has been in Houston since 2006 and business has more than doubled, in that time.
With a growing presence in drilling for shale oil, the company says consolidating thousands of employees from a handful of sites will make them more competitive.
"Obviously, we want to build something that's nice," says bhpbilliton Petroleum CEO Mike Yeager. "We want to build something that will have appeal to it. But more important: We want to build something that allows our entire workforce to get together to do the kinds of things that we do."
bhpbilliton says it has hired almost 600 people in the last six months and plans to add almost as many by the end of the year.
The company expect to be in its new building by late 2016.
