French oil giant Total is on the verge of announcing a major move. The company will invest billions and create an estimated 2,200 jobs as it expands its refinery operations in Port Arthur.

It’s good news not just for the city, but also a major boost for oil refining capacity in the United States.

Deloris Prince has seen the good and the bad in Port Arthur.

"(It was a) thriving place. Port Arthur was thriving,” she said.

To look at it now, all she sees are the shells of thriving businesses, hollow memories and nothing to advertise.

“People can say what they want about Port Arthur,” said Prince. “But as long as you have hope you are not near death.”

With Total’s announcement pending, she may be right. This may be the epicenter of investment with billions of dollars on the way.

It’s always been about oil here and still is.

Total is one of the biggest oil companies in the world. Based in France, it is pouring money into an expansion here.

The Total expansion approved by the company’s board of directors Tuesday will be a $2.2 billion project and estimated to create more than 2,000 jobs in the near future.

But that is not the first major announcement here. Valero is also spending billions to expand in Port Arthur and Exxon is dropping another billion on a new facility in the Golden Triangle.

"Just the amount of money that will be spent in the community will give us all a shot in the arm,” said Steve Fitzgibbons, Port Arthur’s city manager.

It has been said, that you can judge a city by the direction that it is looking to the past or to the future. The signs of the past are impossible to miss in Port Arthur and the future is about more than money.

Just ask the mayor, who took on the job before there were any expansion plans.

The mayor is Deloris Prince.

"It is a breath of fresh life. It is an energizer for us,” she said.

The past is its self a lesson, because multi-billion dollar second chances don't come often.