BATON ROUGE - The East Baton Rouge Metro Council approved a tax exemption for ExxonMobil, paving the way for a potential overhaul of its Baton Rouge refinery.

The metro council vote, which happened at Wednesday's meeting, was the last hurdle for Exxon to get its ITEP status. The item passed the council unanimously.

The tax break, worth roughly $23 million over 10 years, had already been approved by the sheriff and school board. 

Exxon has said it was seeking the break to compete for a quarter-billion-dollar project to modernize its refinery in the capital city. Exxon will make a final decision on where it will invest that money this March.