Crude oil flows from the Permian Basin to the U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC) dropped sharply in June, falling to 5.41 MMb/d — a decline of 351 Mb/d compared to May — according to the latest monthly data from the Texas Railroad Commission. This represents the lowest outbound flows since November 2023 and follows May’s record-breaking monthly figure of 5.76 MMb/d. The decrease was primarily driven by a planned 10-day outage on the Wink to Webster (W2W) pipeline early in the month, which significantly reduced flows to Houston. Flows to Corpus Christi remained nearly flat while Nederland saw an increase.
Houston, which has been the primary beneficiary of Permian Basin oil production growth in 2024, saw volumes drop by 417 Mb/d to 2.16 MMb/d (dark-blue section in chart below), marking the lowest Permian-to-Houston flows since September 2023. ONEOK’s BridgeTex pipeline captured an additional 93 Mb/d, and Energy Transfer’s pipelines to Nederland (orange section) also appeared to benefit from W2W’s downtime, increasing volumes by nearly 11%. Most of the other pipes to the Gulf Coast were already operating near full capacity, limiting the ability to offset W2W’s outage. Flows to Corpus Christi (teal section) totaled 2.39 MMb/d, down a modest 19 Mb/d from May.
