Comanche Trail Pipeline

Energy Transfer’s latest Texas-to-Mexico natural gas pipeline project—the 1.4-Bcf/d Trans-Pecos Pipeline—began service a little over a week ago (on March 31, 2017). It’s the third Tejas-to-Méjico gas transportation project to come online in the past six months, following the expansion of ONEOK’s Roadrunner Gas Transmission pipeline in October 2016 and the in-service of Energy Transfer’s Comanche Trail Pipeline in January 2017. The three projects have added a total of nearly 3.0 Bcf/d to pipeline export capacity since last October, all originating in the Permian Basin at the Waha gas trading hub in West Texas. A game-changer, right? Well, the reality is not so simple. These expansions on the U.S. side are largely reliant on takeaway capacity on the Mexico side of the border as well as the growth of power demand downstream to support flows, not all of which is coinciding with capacity additions on the U.S. side. Today we look at the latest export pipeline capacity additions and prospects for near-term export demand growth along the Texas-Mexico border.