Seaway Crude plans to load first supertanker at Texas City – it’ll be the first VLCC to be loaded at a Texas port: Enterprise
Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC, the joint venture between Enterprise Products Partners LP (ticker: EPD) and Enbridge Inc. (ticker: ENB), plans to load its first supertanker this month at the Texas City marine terminal, according to information published on the Enterprise investor relations website this week. According to Enterprise, this will be the first VLCC to be loaded at a Texas port.
Image: Enterprise Products Partners
Enterprise said in its presentation that Seaway plans to load the first VLCC, the FMPC C Melody, at Enterprise’s Texas City marine terminal. The company expects the cargo to be loaded there to be approximately 1.1 million barrels, about half the ship’s two-million barrel capacity. The company said the remaining crude oil would be transferred to the VLCC in the lightering zone.
Lightering is the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes, usually between a barge and a bulker, or oil tanker. Lightering is undertaken to reduce a vessel’s draft in order to enter port facilities which cannot accept large ocean-going vessels.
Reuters reported that the VLCC was anchored near Houston as of Wednesday according to its Thomson Reuters vessel tracking data/shipping source.
Source: Enterprise Products Partners
Midland to Sealy pipeline offers 540,000 BPD capacity to Permian producers
In April, Enterprise announced that its 416-mile Midland-to-Sealy pipeline was in full service with an expanded capacity of 540,000 barrels per day and was capable of transporting batched grades of crude oil and condensate. The pipeline has an expected capacity of 575,000 BPD which is fully subscribed under long-term contracts, the company said in a press release.
The pipeline connects directly to Enterprise’s 36-inch diameter Rancho II crude oil pipeline, which extends to the company’s 7.4 million-barrel ECHO crude oil terminal in southeast Houston.
Source: Enterprise Products Partners
The Midland-to-ECHO pipeline can deliver multiple grades of crude oil to the Gulf Coast, including West Texas Intermediate, Light West Texas Intermediate, West Texas Sour and condensate.
A 36-inch diameter, 65-mile pipeline lateral from the Seaway Jones Creek Terminal, north of Freeport, takes oil to Enterprise’s ECHO crude oil storage facility in southeast Houston. From ECHO, shippers are able to sell crude and other products to the major Gulf Coast refineries in the Houston, Texas City and Beaumont/Port Arthur areas, and the U.S. oil has access to Enterprise’s deepwater docks to facilitate export, the company said.
Seaway
Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC (Seaway) is a 50/50 joint venture between Enterprise Products Partners L.P., the operator, and Enbridge Inc., which purchased its ownership interest from ConocoPhillips (ticker: COP) on November 16, 2011.
Source: Enterprise Products Partners
The Seaway system includes a 500-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline between Cushing, Oklahoma and the Freeport, Texas area, and a terminal and distribution crude oil network originating in Texas City, Texas that serves all of the refineries in the Greater Houston area.
Pipeline reversal and domestic production growth = exports
When the shale boom began to gather real momentum in oil plays like the Bakken, the growing North American crude oil production, combined with a lack of southbound pipeline capacity created a bottleneck at the Cushing hub in Oklahoma.
In 2012 Enterprise and Enbridge completed a project to reverse the flow direction of the Seaway Pipeline, allowing it to transport crude oil from the Cushing, Oklahoma hub to the refinery complex along the Gulf Coast near Houston.
The pipelines carry a variety of crude oil originating from various North American production areas, including the Mid-continent, the Bakken play in North Dakota, the Permian Basin in West Texas, and Canada. All of these varieties of oil are in demand from Gulf Coast refiners.
The reversed line had an initial capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (BPD) but was upgraded to 400,000 BPD of crude oil in 2013.
The pipeline, which was designed to parallel the existing right-of-way from Cushing to the Gulf Coast, more than doubled Seaway’s capacity to 850,000 BPD following completion in July, 2014.
Another Texas pipeline to deliver Delaware Basin oil to Midland is on track for July completion
Enterprise is constructing a separate 143-mile pipeline system which is expected to deliver more than 300,000 BPD of crude oil and condensate from the Delaware Basin into Enterprise’s Midland Terminal. The company said that the project is on schedule for completion in July 2018.
Source: Enterprise Products Partners
Source: Enterprise Products Partners
