TAN

Houston area refineries are currently operating with about a third less onshore storage (measured in storage days) than comparable refineries in other regions. Waterborne crude imports help to alleviate the challenges that this constraint can cause. But Houston is importing less waterborne crude nowadays – down by 0.5 MMb/d since 2011 to just under 1 MMb/d and that number will continue to fall as US production increases. When you add the challenges of handling crude quality issues, including apotential new requirement to segregate certain types of condensate, the storage shortfall looks even worse. Today we continue our analysis of Houston area crude storage.