Making America Even Greater Tomorrow -- July 9, 2019

Updates

December 10, 2019: from Rigzone --

Enbridge Inc. and Enterprise Products Partners L.P. have agreed to jointly develop and market a deepwater offshore crude oil export terminal capable of fully loading very large crude carrier (VLCC) vessels, Enbridge reported Monday, December 9, 2019.

The companies have signed a letter of intent under which they will finalize an equity participation agreement granting Enbridge an option to purchase an ownership interest in Enterprise’s Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) if SPOT receives a deepwater port license.

Enterprise also noted the SPOT project would comprise onshore and offshore facilities including a fixed platform approximately 30 nautical miles off the Brazoria County, Texas, coast in approximately 115 feet of water. The company added that SPOT would be designed to load VLCCs at rates of approximately 85,000 barrels per hour – equating to approximately 2 million barrels per day.

Enbridge’s involvement in SPOT will help the company provide its North American light and heavy crude customers with access to the Houston-area refining market and growing global demand.

Original Post 

Some years ago, RBN Energy provided a "what's coming" list with regard to LNG export terminals for the US. Now, RBN Energy is providing a similar list regarding new offshore crude oil terminals.

The key word there: offshore. 

From RBN Energy today:

While expansion projects at onshore terminals allow their developers to build off of existing infrastructure, what they cannot do — at least so far — is enable their docks to fully load deep-draft, 2-MMbbl VLCCs, which are the most cost-efficient waterborne means for transporting crude long distances (like from the Gulf Coast to Asia).

To fill a VLCC to the gills, you need more than 72 feet of draft, and to get that along most of the Texas and Louisiana coast, you typically have to go out at least several miles. Hence, the growing importance of deepwater offshore terminals like the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which since the early 1980s has been receiving VLCCs fully laden with foreign crude — and since early 2018 has been sending out a small but growing number of VLCCs filled to the brim with U.S.-sourced oil.

LOOP is still the only Gulf Coast facility capable of fully loading VLCCs.

Otherwise, VLCCs exporting crude are generally reverse lightered in specified deepwater lightering areas in the Gulf — a couple of onshore terminals (Moda Midstream’s Ingleside facility near Corpus Christi, and Seaway’s Texas City terminal) can load VLCCs about halfway at their docks, then top them off via reverse lightering.

The initial round:

• EPD: a 2-million bopd Sea Port Oil Termianl (SPOT) 30+ miles off the coast of Brazoria County, TX
• Enbridge/Oiltanking: a proposed 2-million bopd Colt Offshore Loading Terminal about 30 miles south of Freeport, TX
• Jupiter MLP: a 1-million bopd terminal project six miles off Brownville, TX
• Tallgrass Energy: a proposed 1-million bopd terminal near the mouth of the Mississippi River and Venice, LA
• Trafigura: a proposed 0.5-million Texas Gulf Terminal 15 miles off Corpus Christi
• Carlyle Group: Lone Star Ports, onshore crude export terminal on Harbor Island, near the entry to the Corpus Christi Ship Channel; would deepen the channel entry to 75 feet to allow full loading of VLCCs

Latest: two newer offshore crude export terminals; both filed applications with MARAD over the past few weeks --

• Sentinel Midstream: a proposed 1-million bopd Texas GulfLink project; 33 miles off the coast of Freeport, TX
• Phillips 66: a proposed 1-million bopd Bluewater Texas Terminal (Bluewater, for short); 17 miles off Corpus Christi

As a reader suggested when RBN Energy posted the LNG export terminal list, just because a company has filed an application doesn't mean the project will get off the ground (or in this case, get off the water). So, that's the disclaimer, as it were.

So, let's add up the "export capacity" for the above listed proposed projects:

1. EPD: 2
2. Enbridge: 2
3. Jupiter: 1
4. Tallgrass: 1
5. Trafigura: 0.5
6. Carlyle (onshore): unknown, but let's call it 1 million b/d
7. Sentinel: 1
8. Phillips 66: 1
9. Total: almost 10 million bopd new export capacity

Is 10 million bopd plausible? See this note posted earlier today. Wood Mackenzie says the Permian will add 4 million bopd takeaway capacity by 2022 and that will still be much less than required by the mid 2030s.

Just imagine when the rest of the world runs out of oil (as predicted by the Peak Oilers) and the US government applies a $25/barrel tax on all outgoing crude oil to pay for "Medicare For All." Something tells me Occasional-Cortex will be able to do the math by then. Okay, I'm joking (choking?) on that one.

What a great country.