Transshipment

Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that inland barge movements between the U.S. Midwest and the Gulf Coast increased 10 fold between January 2011 and October 2013 to nearly 160 Mb/d in response to soaring crude production and pipeline congestion. Since then barge traffic on the Mississippi River (the main waterway between the two regions) plunged 80% to 27 Mb/d in April 2015 – the latest month reported. Today we explain why.

Last Wednesday (October 9, 2013) Buckeye Partners announced an agreement to purchase Hess Oil’s East Coast terminal assets – including a crude and fuel oil terminal on the Island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. Buckeye already own a large oil storage terminal in the Bahamas, known as BORCO so with the new acquisition they will become the largest storage and terminal player in the Caribbean market. The fuel oil trade in the region is a combination of local bunkers supply, fuel oil for power plants and larger scale transshipments of fuel oil for international markets. Today we look at fuel oil terminal facilities in the Caribbean.