Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, an oil terminal firm processing about 15 percent of the nation’s oil imports, is relocating its headquarters to Covington.

Officials broke ground Thursday on the 78,000-square-foot facility in NorthPark Office Park, along U.S. Highway 190 in Covington, where a team of 45 employees and 15 contractors will soon operate the LOOP system co-owned by Marathon Oil Co., Shell Oil Co. and New Orleans-based Murphy Oil Co.

“We welcome you here,” Parish President Kevin Davis said. “We put our arms around you and embrace you here. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe here.”

Pictured are, from left, Louisiana Offshore Oil Port administrators, Doug Sparkman, Marathon representative and chairman, Thomas Shaw, president, Michelle Joy, Shell representative and chairwoman and Parish President Kevin Davis, break ground for LOOP'€™s new corporate headquarters in Covington Thursday. (Staff Photo by Matthew Penix)

The corporate headquarters, designed by the Mandeville-based architectural firm Robert C Lambert Consultants, calls for a steel frame capable of withstanding Category 4 hurricanes with winds up to 146 mph and a 100-space parking garage. Louisville, Ky.-based Kelly Construction Inc. will build the new office by summer 2010.

Considered a vital energy artery to the United States, the LOOP terminal offloads, stores and distributes roughly 1.2 million barrels of foreign crude oil daily and more than 300,000 barrels of domestic oil daily, according to company literature.

Connected to pipelines snaking along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the LOOP terminal pumps about half the nation’s refining capacity. And at 115 feet deep and 18 miles south of Grand Isle, it’s America’s first and only deepwater port operating under both U.S. and Louisiana licenses. Since its inception in 1971, the terminal has been considered a pioneering hub in the energy sector. Roughly 120 people man the terminal 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

But when Hurricane Katrina rumbled toward Louisiana, the energy vein nearly snapped.

“We found a weak link in our system with Katrina,” Tom Shaw, LOOP president, said. “We decided to take control of our own destiny and build a new home.”

St. Tammany Parish was the answer, he said. LOOP’s shift in headquarters from Metairie to Covington is another in a long line of New Orleans-based oil companies moving to St. Tammany. The Northshore’s lush green space, top-notch public schools and lower probability of catastrophic flooding have become a corporate magnet, said Brenda Reine-Bertus, executive director of St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation.

“It’s becoming more and more evident St. Tammany’s quality of life is bringing corporate headquarters here,” she said.

Most recently, Chevron Oil moved its headquarters from Gravier Street in the French Quarter to Covington, building an energy friendly 300,000-square-foot facility complete with a gym, walking trail and cafeteria.

ATS Inc., a subsidiary of Woodside Petroleum, Australia’s No. 1 publicly traded oil and gas company; Wink Engineering Inc., a firm specializing in designing offshore drilling rigs and platforms; and Hornbeck Offshore Services, a company providing drilling platforms, are just a few energy companies to move to St. Tammany Parish.

But LOOP is the first area energy company to operate a terminal that transports crude oil to and from some of the largest tankers in the world, some weighing 700,000 tons. Four 7,000 horsepower pumps load and offload the tankers.

The terminal boasts a control platform, equipped with a helo pad, living quarters, offices and life support equipment.