San Antonio pipeline operator NuStar Energy is making a $400 million bet on the growth of exports at the Port of Corpus Christi.
Source: Houston Chronicle
During a Tuesday morning presentation at the 2019 RBC Capital Markets Midstream Conference in Dallas, the company’s CEO Brad Barron laid out the pipeline operator’s capital expenditure budget for next year. Three out of four expansion projects are pegged to the South Texas waterway.
NuStar exited Europe and the Caribbean last year, pocketing about $500 million in cash.
During his presentation, Barron explained that NuStar is investing the lion’s share of that money into four projects. A closer look reveals that three of them are tied to expected growth of exports at the Port of Corpus Christi.
NuStar plans to invest $165 million to expand its Permian Basin crude oil gathering pipeline network. NuStar’s West Texas system will connect to three Corpus Christi-bound transmission pipelines — the EPIC Pipeline, Cactus II Pipeline and Gray Oak Pipeline.
The company also plans to invest another $105 million to expand and improve its docks at the Port of Corpus Christi, allowing supertankers to load up larger export shipments.
Capitalizing on three refineries at the port, NuStar is investing another $145 million to expand capacity of its Mexico-bound refined products pipelines, which will boost volumes of gasoline, diesel and other products delivered to customers south of the border.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in San Antonio, NuStar Energy has more than 1,500 employees across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
With 9,800 miles of pipeline and more than 60 million barrels of storage capacity, the company reported making $206 million of net income on $1.96 billion of revenue in 2018.
