From the San Antonio Business Journal
After years of waiting, San Antonio-based midstream company NuStar Energy now has the green light to move forward with two cross-border pipeline projects in South Texas.
The U.S. State Department issued three presidential permits on June 29 giving NuStar Energy LP (NYSE: NS) approval for a cross-border project in Laredo and another in Peñitas.
In a press conference titled “Unleashing American Energy,” President Donald Trump announced the permits for NuStar as one of six new initiatives to transform the U.S. into an energy exporter.
“We’re here today to usher in a new American energy policy — one that unlocks millions and millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth,” Trump said.
Under the first permit, the State Department expanded the types of products that can be exported through the company’s already-existing Dos Laredos Pipeline, which feeds a storage terminal across the border in Nuevo Laredo. Originally permitted in 2003 to transport 32,400 barrels of liquefied petroleum gas per day, NuStar now has permission to use the Dos Laredos Pipeline to ship 24,000 barrels per day of diesel and other refined petroleum products.
In the second permit, NuStar received permission to build a new 10-inch pipeline under the Rio Grande River near the Hidalgo County town of Peñitas where it plans to ship liquefied petroleum gas and natural gas liquids to Mexico. The New Burgos Pipeline, which will run parallel to the company’s already-existing Burgos Pipeline, will connect a NuStar facility on the American side of the border in Edinburg to a Petróleos Mexicanos gas plant near Reynosa. The new 1.6-mile pipeline will have a shut off valve on the American side of the border and will be built in the right of way of the old pipeline.
The third permit approves an ownership name change for both the Burgos and Dos Laredos pipelines. Although the original acquisition deal took place years ago, the new permit officially changes the ownership of the cross-border pipelines from Valero Logistics Operations LP to NuStar Logistics LP.
NuStar Energy CEO Brad Barron was among the industry leaders who attended Trump’s press conference in Washington D.C.
“NuStar is currently in negotiations with different customers to move refined products in to Mexico,” Barron said in a statement. “Receiving these presidential permits is a very important step in moving the agreements with the customers to completion.”
