Ingleside

The 35-year dream of widening the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and deepening it to 54 feet from the old 47 feet is at long last a reality. The $625 million project also has spurred marine-terminal owners in Corpus Christi and Ingleside to undertake — or at least consider — major dock and dredging projects that would enable them to make full use of the deeper 30-mile channel. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the newly completed channel-dredging project, related terminal improvements, and what they all mean for crude oil exporting economics in Corpus Christi. 

Enbridge’s recent $200 million deal to buy two marine docks and land in Ingleside, TX, from Flint Hills Resources (FHR) may not be much of a surprise, as expanding its role in U.S. crude exports has been part of Enbridge’s strategy since it bought Moda Midstream’s big marine terminal next door nearly three years ago. The former Moda terminal, now known as the Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center (EIEC), can receive and partially load Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) — a key reason why the facility is #1 in crude exports in the nation. In today’s RBN blog, we will take a closer look at Enbridge’s deal with FHR and how it might help grow its crude export volumes. 

With many years gone by and many millions of dollars spent, the deepwater crude oil export projects under development along the U.S. Gulf Coast are finally getting close to receiving their regulatory green light. These projects have sparked commercial and wider market interest because of the many benefits they may provide — including the ability to fully load the biggest tankers, the Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) capable of taking on 2 MMbbl, which could contribute to lower per-barrel shipping costs. In today’s RBN blog, we kick off an offshore oil terminal series, starting with the case for constructing at least one of the export projects. 

The level of activity at crude oil export terminals from Corpus Christi to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is nothing short of extraordinary — a record 4.8 MMb/d was loaded the week ended August 25, according to RBN’s Crude Voyager report, and Houston-area terminals loaded an all-time high of 1.4 MMb/d. But there’s a lot more to the crude exports story. When you live this stuff day-in, day-out, you see subtle changes that often extend into trends and, if you’re lucky, you sometimes get signals that things you’d been predicting are actually happening. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from the latest Crude Voyager and what the weekly report’s data and analysis reveal about the global oil market.

A long-planned ship-channel deepening and widening project in Corpus Christi Bay is in its last innings and is about to start having a real impact. Later this summer, a 7-foot-deeper channel at Ingleside will enable terminals there to load additional barrels into VLCCs, assuming they’ve dredged their berths to match the deeper channel. Deepening the channel to 54 feet (from the old 47 feet) also will enable terminals that have deepened their berths to fully load 1-MMbbl Suezmaxes, up from the 800-850 Mbbl that can be loaded now. Crude oil export economics in South Texas will get another boost in late 2024 when the fourth and final portion of the $680 million dredging project is completed. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the dredging project, its steady progress, and its impact on the “battle for barrels” among Corpus, the Houston area and a quartet of proposed offshore terminals.

A long-planned ship-channel deepening and widening project in Corpus Christi Bay is in its last innings and is about to start having a real impact. Later this summer, a 7-foot-deeper channel at Ingleside will enable terminals there to load additional barrels into VLCCs, assuming they’ve dredged their berths to match the deeper channel. Deepening the channel to 54 feet (from the old 47 feet) also will enable terminals that have deepened their berths to fully load 1-MMbbl Suezmaxes, up from the 800-850 Mbbl that can be loaded now. Crude oil export economics in South Texas will get another boost in late 2024 when the fourth and final portion of the $680 million dredging project is completed. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the dredging project, its steady progress, and its impact on the “battle for barrels” among Corpus, the Houston area and a quartet of proposed offshore terminals.

In small steps and giant leaps, Enbridge has been building out two “supersystems” for transporting crude oil to refineries and the company’s own export terminals along Texas’s Gulf Coast, one moving heavy crude all the way from Alberta’s oil sands to the Houston area and the other shuttling light oil from the Permian to Enbridge’s massive terminal in Ingleside on the north side of Corpus Christi Bay. There’s nothing quite like it — first, an unbroken series of pipelines from Western Canada to Enbridge’s tank farm in Cushing, OK, (via the Midwest) and from there to Freeport, TX, on the twin Seaway pipelines; and second, the Gray Oak and Cactus II pipes from West Texas to the U.S.’s #1 crude export terminal. And the midstream giant is far from done. New projects and expansions are in the works, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog.

Since the long-standing ban on most exports of U.S. crude oil was lifted more than five years ago, major ports and marine terminals along the Gulf Coast have been competing fiercely for the business of crude shippers. The primary weapons in this battle for barrels have been the abilities to provide easy pipeline access to the Permian and other key production basins, ample storage near the water for blending and staging, and top-notch dock facilities for quickly, efficiently loading crude onto tankers, the bigger the better. On that last point, for many shippers the vessel of choice is a 2-MMbbl VLCC, which typically offers the lowest per-barrel cost for long-distance oil delivery. Crude-laden VLCCs are “low riders” that need deep water, though, and so far only the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port can fully load one. Within a year, though, thanks to a long-awaited Corpus Christi Ship Channel dredging project now under way, marine terminals in Ingleside, TX, will be able to do the next-best thing: loading up to 1.6 MMbbl onto VLCCs, and thereby reducing the need for offshore reverse lightering. Today, we discuss the project to deepen the channel to 54 feet and its impact on crude exports.

Week by week, more than 20 terminals along the U.S. Gulf Coast export crude oil, but nearly half of the total export volumes are being loaded at just three facilities: the Moda Midstream terminal near Corpus Christi, the Enterprise Hydrocarbon Terminal in Houston, and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) off the Louisiana coast. What gives these “Big 3” their edge? Location? Pipeline connectivity? Storage capacity? Loading rate? The answer, of course, is “all of the above.” There is more to the story, though, and other terminals are angling to become bigger players, presumably at the expense of the Big 3 themselves. Today, we begin a series on Texas and Louisiana’s largest oil export facilities, what they offer, how they’ve fared, and what they’re planning next.

Last week, Hurricane Delta became the latest of a string of hurricanes and tropical storms that have assaulted the Gulf Coast this year and disrupted energy production in the Gulf of Mexico — and energy exports. A number of major storms made direct hits or glancing blows to crude export centers like Corpus Christi, Houston, Beaumont, and Louisiana, forcing marine terminals to either slow down their carrier-loading operations or shut down for a few days at a time. That led to a yo-yoing of weekly export volumes: way down one week, way up the next. Despite the short-term dislocations, however, total export volumes since the hurricane season started on June 1 are actually up slightly from the first five months of 2020, a testament to the resilience not only of the export market but to the marine terminals themselves. Today, we discuss how hurricanes and tropical storms have been affecting export-terminal activity.