The great Texas philosopher Matthew McConaughey once said, “I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve.” Few pieces of crude oil infrastructure embody that spirit of adaptation quite like ONEOK’s Longhorn Pipeline. Starting out as a Houston-bound conduit for Permian crude, Longhorn later reversed its flow and started moving refined products, then — at just the right time, in the early days of the Permian’s Shale Era rebirth — flipped back to eastbound crude service. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll detail the pipeline’s evolution and its critical role in moving Permian oil to the Gulf Coast market.
Stretching from West Texas to Houston, the Longhorn Pipeline began operation in the 1950s moving decidedly Pre-Shale Permian crude oil east to refineries in and around the Houston area. In 1995, the pipeline was acquired by Longhorn Partners Pipeline LP, which planned to — and eventually did — convert the pipeline to westbound refined-products service and extend the line westward from Crane to El Paso, thereby facilitating the flow of gasoline and diesel to the western tip of the Lone Star State. In 2009, Magellan Midstream Partners acquired the pipeline after Longhorn Partners Pipeline filed for bankruptcy. Magellan had an idea — stick with us, this will take a couple of quick paragraphs to explain.
Most of the Permian crude being produced then was either consumed by the four local refineries (refinery icons in Figure 1 below) or piped to Cushing, OK, or Nederland, TX. Pipes from the Permian to Cushing included Centurion Pipeline (250 Mb/d; green line; acquired by Energy Transfer in 2023) and Plains All American’s Basin Pipeline (400 Mb/d at the time; blue line), which runs to Wichita Falls, TX, and then to Cushing. Energy Transfer’s West Texas Gulf Pipeline (WTG; pink line) was the only long-haul pipeline from the Permian to the Gulf Coast (destined for Nederland where previous operator Sunoco Logistics Partners had a terminal — the company and the terminal were later acquired by Energy Transfer). It also delivers barrels to Longview in East Texas.
Figure 1. Permian Crude Infrastructure Before 2010. Source: RBN
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