Sapphire Gas Solutions has made its headquarters in Conroe’s old Louisiana Pacific building. Here’s what the company does.

Earlier this year, a new sign for Sapphire Gas Solutions was placed on the six-story office building at FM 2854 and Interstate 45 in Conroe.

Most long-time Conroe residents know the building with reddish brown brick as the old Louisiana Pacific building or the old “LP” building. 

Louisiana Pacific vacated the office building in March 2011, since then the tower and the one-story annex have been made up of smaller businesses.

Sapphire Gas Solutions started small at the property but now occupies half of the sixth floor and the entire fifth floor of the tower. 

Here’s what to know about the company and its impact locally and across the country:

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Exit of Louisiana Pacific 

Louisiana-Pacific Corp. or LP is an American building materials manufacturer. The company incorporated in January 1973 and is known for pioneering the production of the wood product oriented strand board. 

For the company’s first 33 years, the headquarters was in Portland, Oregon with administrative offices in Hayden Lake, Idaho; Conroe; Charlotte, North Carolina; Montreal, Quebec; Schaumburg, Illinois and Troy, Michigan.

In 2004, the company moved its headquarters to Nashville and in March 2011 closed the Conroe LP office which had about 30 employees remaining. In addition to Sapphire Gas Solutions, a variety of smaller businesses, such as lawyers, CPA firms, insurance agents, financial advisors and marketing firms now occupy the tower and annex. 

A familiar landmark 

Sam Thigpen, the founder and CEO of Sapphire Gas Solutions, grew up in the Victoria area and often traveled past the LP building on I-45 while going to visit his family members in New Waverly and his grandparents in Huntsville. 

“I remember seeing the LP sign on the side all those years ago,” he said. 

Space in the tower now serves as the national headquarters for his business which serves as a natural gas virtual pipeline system that transports liquefied natural gas, compressed natural gas or renewable natural gas across the country via trucks instead of through traditional underground pipelines. 

What does Sapphire Gas do? 

Thigpen was a part of a gas pipeline service company up to 2005 in the service side. There were two divisions, one was manufacturing and the other was service. 

The company dissolved the service aspect of the business to focus on manufacturing. This left a golden opportunity for Thigpen to launch his own pipeline service company in 2005. 

From 2005 to roughly 2012, his company did primarily pipeline service including installing remote communications systems to relay information from the field back to the pipeline company’s headquarters in addition to analyzing and measuring gas and instrumentation.

In 2011, his company had the opportunity to bid on the compressed natural gas station in Conroe. 

“We take gas off the line, compress it and put it into their trash trucks and that’s what they use for fuel instead of diesel,” he said. There was a missing connection though. 

There was the station and the trucks but there were delays in getting the gas to connect the two. Bridging that gap of offering a virtual natural gas pipeline is how they got into their operations today. 

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A shift in natural gas business

He began to see there was a market for compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. In roughly 2013 or 2014, his company was delivering natural gas as a fuel instead of diesel to the oilfields. 

“Then we got a call from the Port of Baton Rouge. They had a pipeline that was being shut down. They had this facility at the port where natural gas was needed. When they would offload barges, the vapors from the chemical had to be burned. They couldn’t be without natural gas because they had to use it to burn the vapors off,” he said. 

It was a very quick turnaround for Thigpen’s group to get natural gas to the port within a few days. 

“That was really the catalyst for what we do today,” he said. “We do that all over the country now.” 

Company’s first shop was in Cut and Shoot

He said his first shop was built around 2008 in the Cut and Shoot area and his first few employees were from Conroe.

In 2014, he built a facility on the Hardy Toll Road but moved back to Montgomery County in 2018. Their business offices started in the one-story annex at 100 I-45. 

The company began to occupy more and more space in the annex before moving into the tower where the company now occupies half of the sixth floor and all of the fifth floor. 

There are 135 to 140 in the company total. Eighty percent of the staff work in Conroe with smaller administrative offices in locations such as Southern California, Phoenix and Tennessee.

His main goal for putting the sign on the building earlier this year was for greater visibility for the business. At times people were traveling to his headquarters and would end up at the adjacent central library. 

The sign also solidifies that the company is planning its future in Conroe, he said. Recently the company was named one of Business Fortune’s 30 Best Companies for 2024. In 2021, Thigpen was named the EY Gulf South Entrepreneur of the Year. 

Ties to IndyCar season

For the 2023 IndyCar season, the company partnered with a generator company based in California to offer an alternative compressed natural gas fuel to support power operations at IndyCar races with Steinbrenner Racing and Andretti Racing. They were a part of the Dallas race and several others around the country in 2023. 

Thigpen wants to come back for the 2025 IndyCar season to supply fuel and sees compressed natural gas being an option for many larger events, such as the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

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