Three Rivers

Corpus Christi has emerged as an important crude refining and distribution market hub for Eagle Ford and Permian Basin crude and lease condensate. Corpus has a lot going for it: it’s close to--and well-connected by pipeline with--the Eagle Ford, it has new and potentially growing connections with Permian; and Corpus and its environs boast considerable crude/condensate storage, refining and processing capacity, as well as one of the nation’s busiest ports. Today we continue our review of Eagle Ford crude/condensate pipelines feeding Corpus including Kinder Morgan, NuStar, Magellan and Harvest pipelines.

They say that being in the right place at the right time has a lot to do with success in business. Two companies with infrastructure in the Eagle Ford can certainly attest to that. Koch Industries and NuStar Energy both owned pipeline assets supplying crude to refineries in South Texas long before the shale boom – putting them in a strong position to benefit from the flood of crude on their doorstep. Since 2011 both companies have expanded pipeline and terminal infrastructure to ship nearly 600 Mb/d of crude and condensate between them. Today we explain how.

Eagle Ford pipeline takeaway capacity is four times production and local refinery consumption  – an excess of over 1.3 MMb/d. More than 20 pipeline projects are already built or under construction to move Eagle Ford production to market. Today we review recent Genscape research on Eagle Ford infrastructure and assess the takeaway balance.