Sea Port Oil Terminal

In the race to build the next deepwater crude oil export terminal in the Gulf of Mexico, Sentinel Midstream’s proposed Texas GulfLink (TGL) has become one of the frontrunners. TGL’s plan gained its crucial Record of Decision (ROD) Approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) on February 14, but there is still some distance to go before a final investment decision (FID) is reached. In today’s RBN blog we’ll discuss Sentinel’s TGL plan, why it might be uniquely positioned to move forward, and the other contenders still in play. 

Enterprise Products Partners continues to grow its export capabilities and set ambitious goals, including one noted by CEO Jim Teague during his appearance at RBN’s recent NACON: PADD 3 conference — growing liquid hydrocarbon exports by about 50% to a remarkable 100 MMbbl per month (100 MMb/month), or about 3.33 MMb/d. And that doesn’t include the company’s planned Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), which could send out up to 2 MMb/d! While that goal may seem lofty, Enterprise is already a major player in export markets and has extensive hydrocarbon delivery, storage and distribution assets in place to feed its coastal terminals. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the crude oil side of Enterprise’s export machine and show why supply will be key to meeting part of that ambitious goal. 

Crude oil, natural gas and NGL production roared back in 2023. All three energy commodity groups hit record volumes, which means one thing: more infrastructure is needed. That means gathering systems, pipelines, processing plants, refinery units, fractionators, storage facilities and, above all, export dock capacity. That’s because most of the incremental production is headed overseas — U.S. energy exports are on the rise! If 2023’s dominant story line was production growth, exports and (especially) the need for new infrastructure, you can bet our blogs on those topics garnered more than their share of interest from RBN’s subscribers. Today we dive into our Top 10 blogs to uncover the hottest topics in 2023 energy markets. 

If you think, as we do, that (1) U.S. crude oil production is likely to increase by 1.5 to 2 MMb/d over the next five years, (2) almost all those barrels will be light-sweet crude that needs to be exported, and (3) exporters will overwhelmingly favor the marine terminals that can accommodate Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), it would be hard to ignore the game-changing impacts that Enterprise Products Partners’ planned Sea Port Oil Terminal could have. SPOT, which could be completed as soon as 2026, will have robust pipeline connections from the Permian and other shale plays and be capable of fully loading a 2-MMbbl VLCC in one day, enough to handle virtually all the incremental exports we’re likely to see over the next five years. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the fast-increasing role of VLCCs in U.S. crude oil exports and the potentially seismic impacts of the SPOT project.

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.

The Moda Ingleside Energy Center (MIEC) in Corpus Christi, the Enterprise Hydrocarbons Terminal (EHT) in Houston, and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) have been loading more crude oil than any of their Gulf Coast competitors over the last year. In fact, they accounted for nearly half of the total oil exported. As many of the crude exporters have learned the hard way, leading the pack today is no guarantee you’ll still be out front six, 12, or 24 months from now. Despite the global pandemic and the market disruptions it has caused, a number of new export terminals and expansions to existing terminals are still under development, and all of them hope to draw barrels from their rivals. Today, we conclude our series with a look at planned capacity additions to Gulf Coast export facilities.

U.S. crude oil production is off its historic highs, the rig count is in free-fall, and crude inventories are rising fast, with the Cushing-to-Magellan East Houston price differential drawing oil away from the Gulf Coast and to the Oklahoma storage hub. Oh, and global demand for crude is off by more than 20%. None of this bodes well for U.S. crude exports, which have been at or near record levels the past few months. What seems to be shaping up is a fierce competition among the owners of existing export terminals to offer the most efficient, lowest-cost access to the water. Today, we continue our series with a look at Enterprise Products Partners’ Houston-area crude oil storage, pipelines and docks.

The news has been out for a few days now: Enterprise Products Partners announced last Tuesday, July 30, that, thanks to new agreements with Chevron, the midstream company has made a final investment decision to proceed with its Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) about 30 miles off the coast of Freeport, TX, pending regulatory approvals. Being out front on this is critically important; even with significant growth in crude oil export volumes through the early 2020s, only one or two new export terminals capable of fully loading Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) are likely to be needed. What was it that enabled Enterprise to move first among a wave of proposed projects? And what does that tell us about the VLCC-ready export terminal projects being advanced by others? Today, we look at the SPOT project and the important roles that existing pipeline and storage infrastructure play in export terminal development.