offshore export terminals

U.S. crude oil exports are off from the record highs they reached earlier this year, leaving the Gulf Coast even more flush with surplus export capacity than it had been going into 2020. And yet … Energy Transfer is developing an crude export terminal off the coast of Beaumont, TX, that would be capable of fully loading a 2-MMbbl VLCC every day or so. Is the company’s Blue Marlin project based simply on a hunch that U.S. oil production and exports will rebound over time and eventually leave PADD 3 short of dock and ship-loading capacity? Or is Energy Transfer’s proposed offshore terminal, with its extensive re-use of existing infrastructure, a cost-efficient way of giving oil-sands, Bakken and other producers more direct access to deep water and the supertankers that long-distance shippers prefer? Today, we discuss what may be behind the seemingly long-shot effort to develop new export capacity in a region that’s already got way too much.

In 2018, a handful of midstream companies started racing to develop deepwater export terminals along the Gulf Coast that can fully load Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) with 2 MMbbl of crude oil from the Permian and other plays. While some of those companies are moving toward final investment decisions (FIDs) that would bring their plans to fruition in the early 2020s, terminal operators with existing VLCC-capable assets — both onshore and offshore — turned up the volume in a major way in December. Today, we outline the strides made in recent days by the export programs of the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), Seaway Texas City and Moda Midstream.