In the race to build the next deepwater crude oil export terminal along the U.S. Gulf Coast, there’s a lot of competition but one project now has a clear advantage: Enterprise Product Partners’ planned Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), which has made the most progress in moving through the regulatory morass and announced that it had received its deepwater port license on April 9. In today’s RBN blog, we provide an update on SPOT’s progress and look at some of its inherent advantages, including a potentially shorter time to market and extensive pipeline connectivity.
Canadian crude output is rising, requiring new export routes. As traditional pathways face constraints, the U.S. Rockies—especially the Guernsey, WY hub—are emerging as key corridors for moving Canadian heavy crude to downstream markets, including the Gulf Coast.
Part 1 of this series made the case for constructing at least one of the four deepwater export projects now under development. As we’ve blogged about often (see May Exports Be With You), U.S. crude export volumes took off in the 2010s and are expected to continue growing along with production throughout the 2020s, driving the market to seek the most efficient export options. The projects under development offer a number of potential benefits to shippers and customers alike. Those include the ability to fully load a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) and the economies of scale that come with that, a reduction of reverse lightering and the corresponding decrease in emissions, and freed-up access on congested ship channels for other exports such as NGLs, refined products and ammonia. There is only one operational deepwater crude oil terminal with a single-point mooring (SPM) in the U.S.: the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP; purple diamond in Figure 1 below).
Figure 1. U.S. Gulf Coast Offshore Terminals. Source: RBN
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About the song
“Leader of the Pack" was written by Shadow Morton, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. It appears as the second song on side one of The Shangri-Las’ debut album of the same name. Released in September 1964, the song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. The instrumental parts were recorded in July 1964 at Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, NY, and the vocals were recorded at Mira Sound Studio in New York City, with Shadow Morton producing. Personnel on the record were: Mary Weiss (lead, backing vocals), Betty Weiss (lead, backing vocals), and Marge and Mary Ann Ganser (backing vocals). Uncredited session musicians played on the record. In 1985, heavy metal band Twisted Sister released a cover of the song from their album Come Out and Play. It went to #53 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart.
The album, Leader of the Pack, was compiled and released in February 1965 to capitalize on the success of The Shangri-Las’ hit singles, “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” and “Leader of the Pack.” Produced by Shadow Morton, the album went to #114 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Four singles were released from the LP.
The Shangri-Las were an American pop girl group who were popular in the 1960s. The two sets of singing sisters were discovered by Artie Ripp in New York City. The group took its name from the Shangri-La restaurant in Queens, NY. They released four studio albums, nine compilation albums, and 17 singles before officially breaking up in 1968. Mary Weiss served as the front person and main vocalist for the group. All the girls sang backup and were at times featured as the lead vocalist. Betty Weiss retired from the music business and lives on New York’s Long Island. Mary Ann Ganser died in 1970, Marge Ganser in 1996, and Mary Weiss in January 2024.
