Longview

Energy Transfer has built one of the largest crude oil midstream portfolios in the U.S., yet one of its most important assets — the West Texas Gulf Pipeline — often flies under the radar. The 72-years-young line is still a workhorse, moving crude from the Permian Basin to Longview and Nederland, TX, where it feeds into Energy Transfer’s massive Gulf Coast export hub. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at West Texas Gulf and how it fits into Energy Transfer’s broader midstream strategy.

There is a story behind every new crude oil pipeline built to supply a decades-old refinery. After all, the refinery surely had a well-established crude-delivery system in place –– why change horses now, especially with refinery margins under so much pressure? Typically, the answer is that, well, times have changed. Or, more specifically, the Shale Revolution has up-ended traditional crude sourcing, forced refinery owners to rethink their crude slates, and opened up opportunities to access new, lower-cost oil. Today, we continue our look at these new pipeline connections, their rationales, and their effects on other pipelines, barge deliveries and crude-by-rail.

The flood of domestic light shale crude showing up at the Texas Gulf Coast by pipeline in the past two years is not best matched to most refineries in the region that are configured to run heavier crude. But flows across the Gulf Coast to refineries in the Mississippi Delta more suited to process light crude are constrained by a lack of pipeline capacity between Texas and Louisiana. New domestic shale crude has been delivered to eastern Gulf Coast terminals such as St. James by rail but narrowing coastal differentials to inland prices have reduced the CBR advantage. Today we detail how new pipeline projects promise to increase the flow of crude from Texas to the Eastern Gulf.

Big increases in LPG (propane and butane) exports are planned for the west coast.  In March (2014) Petrogas purchased the Ferndale, WA terminal from Chevron – the only existing west coast LPG terminal.  Then in April, Sage Midstream announced that the company is developing another LPG terminal about 200 miles south at the Port of Longview, WA.    Both terminals are primarily targeting propane exports, not the export of butane that has been the mainstay of Ferndale for decades.  What is the logic behind these deals?  What needs to happen to make them work?  Today in this second part of our series on the new west coast LPG game, we take a closer look at these two facilities, including their potential supply and market destinations.