Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently accompanied Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia, where, alongside some bizarre political theater and $110 billion in arms sales, plans for a new project unfolded. ExxonMobil, the oil company Tillerson formerly helmed, inked a major investment deal with the Saudi Arabia Industries Corporation (SABIC).

Strikingly, the endeavor was not to fund oil field development in Saudi Arabia with US dollars. Rather, SABIC agreed to finance a new petrochemical complex in Texas. Though Tillerson promised that he would recuse himself from any Exxon-related business for one year, he attended the signing ceremony.

The new plant will open in San Patricio, a rural county on the Gulf of Mexico with a population of about 64,000. The project belongs to Exxon’s “Growing the Gulf” initiative, which will funnel more than $20 billion into the region’s oil and chemical industries.