MAPS

Over the past few years — and with a big boost from Permian production growth — the South Texas coast has transformed itself into a top-tier hub for hydrocarbons. Crude oil exports stand out, of course, with marine terminals in Corpus Christi/Ingleside accounting for 60% of U.S. export volumes in 2022. But Corpus also is home to the nation’s second-largest LNG export terminal (which is now being expanded), as well as a half-dozen refineries, and the broader region has the Agua Dulce natural gas hub, nine NGL fractionation plants, and four massive, NGL-consuming ethylene plants, including ExxonMobil/SABIC’s giant new steam cracker in San Patricio County. All of these assets are interconnected by a maze of crude oil, natural gas, NGL, “purity product,” and ethylene pipelines. And the region is well-positioned for additional growth as crude, gas, and NGL production in Texas continues to increase. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss our latest product: a digital, interactive map that helps makes sense of a spaghetti bowl of pipelines, plants and related assets in South Texas.

The need for natural gas processing capacity, new or expanded NGL pipelines and other infrastructure in the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford has spurred a competitive frenzy among midstream companies. NGL production in the two prolific regions has more than doubled in the past four years; it now tops 1.1 MMb/d. Under RBN’s Growth Scenario that assumes output will continue to increase over the near term despite the recent price slump – production in the two regions would rise another 500 Mb/d by 2019. Given that infrastructure in parts of the Permian and Eagle Ford already is struggling to keep pace, it is quite possible that midstream companies will continue to develop new projects.  Today, we begin our company-by-company look at existing infrastructure and planned projects.