LOOP Halts Marine Terminal Operations Ahead of Hurricane Francine

As four proposed crude export terminals off the coast of Texas navigate the long and winding regulatory path toward potential construction, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) already does what they want to do. It’s the sole Gulf Coast terminal that can fully load Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) bound for global markets. LOOP started as an import-only facility, but later flexed to bring oil in and move it out as the energy landscape changed. It’s easy to wonder whether a new offshore crude export facility might be redundant –— why build another one if LOOP could just export more? Turns out it’s not that simple. LOOP is different — in its construction, its connectivity, its role in balancing imports and exports and especially the types of crude it handles. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll examine LOOP’s niche in U.S. crude exports and the role it continues to play. 

The stars may finally be aligning for two related crude oil infrastructure projects that, if undertaken, would provide an important new pathway to overseas markets for Bakken, western Canadian and other North American crude. The first would involve reversing the Capline Pipeline, which was built to transport crude north from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Midwest refiners; the second would make modest physical changes to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port — better known as LOOP — to allow the crude import facility off the Bayou State coast to load crude onto ships, including Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs). Today we look at the new infrastructure and market forces that may finally spur Capline’s reversal and lead imports-focused LOOP to enable exports.

Time and again, the repurposing of existing assets like pipelines and marine terminals to meet changing market needs has proven to be a winning approach. After all, if a lot of what you need is “already there” — as we said in today’s song title — why build something entirely new? That use-what-you’ve-got tack is a key driver behind MPLX and Crimson Midstream’s recently unveiled Swordfish Pipeline project, which by early 2020 would enable large volumes of crude oil to flow south from the St. James, LA, market hub to the Clovelly storage hub — a key crude distributor to area refineries and the jumping-off point for crude exports on fully loaded Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) via the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP). The companies also envision using other existing pipelines — including a possibly reversed Capline — as well as the soon-to-be-finished Bayou Bridge Pipeline to feed crude into Swordfish. Today, we review the MPLX/Crimson plan and assess how it might boost the export cred of LOOP, which is currently the only Gulf Coast port that can fill a 2-MMbbl VLCC to the brim without reverse lightering.