Unleashing American Energy -- American Energy Dominance -- Trump -- US Crude Oil Exports -- February 15, 2025

Locator: 48565OIL.

Tag: Sentinel Midstream crude oil export SPOT EPD Enterprise Products

A reminder before we get to Sentinel Midstream, with regard to SPOT:

Today:  

RBN Energy's top ten prognostications for 2025, link here: 

6. No offshore SPM crude oil terminal will be sanctioned in 2025. 

We really hope to be proved wrong on this one, but it just looks like this is a case where the benefits do not justify the cost. Since 2018, numerous offshore single-point mooring (SPM) terminals have been proposed along the Gulf Coast to fully load a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) without reverse lightering.

Currently, only the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) can handle VLCCs but it is limited to two ships per month on average, far below the one per day a couple of the SPMs could manage.

The remaining projects — Energy Transfer’s Blue Marlin, Sentinel Midstream’s Texas GulfLink, Phillips 66’s Bluewater Texas, and Enterprise’s Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) — have faced regulatory hurdles but made progress, with SPOT receiving its U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) license in April.

Yet none have reached a final investment decision (FID) after nearly seven years of development. The problem is shifting market dynamics. Initially, U.S. crude exports to Asia (15,000 nautical miles from the Gulf Coast) justified VLCC efficiencies, but Europe now takes 45% of exports compared to 40% to Asia, driven by demand shifts due to the Ukraine war and declining North Sea production. The shorter 5,000-nautical-mile trip to Europe diminishes the economic advantage of VLCCs, making shippers hesitant to commit to long-term capacity deals for the SPM terminals. Granted there are still good reasons for one or more of the SPMs to be sanctioned. But it is more difficult today to get shippers signed up than it originally looked, and that’s a situation that will likely get worse before it gets better.

Also from April 25, 2024, also on the blog:

RBN Energy: Sentinel Midstream's Texas GulfLink emerges as serious contender in export terminal race. Archived.

In the race to build the next deepwater crude oil export terminal in the Gulf of Mexico, Sentinel Midstream’s proposed Texas GulfLink (TGL) is currently in second place in the regulatory race, behind only Enterprise’s Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) — and seems to be emerging as a serious contender. The plan offers some compelling attributes, including Sentinel’s status as an independent midstream player and plenty of pipeline access to crude oil volumes in the Permian and elsewhere. In today’s RBN blog, we turn our attention to TGL and what it brings to the table.

 From today:

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Recipes

Cooking rice. Grains.