Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) (Enterprise) and Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (CUSA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX), announced long-term agreements supporting the development of Enterprise’s Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) in the Gulf of Mexico.
Enterprise’s SPOT project consists of onshore and offshore facilities, including a fixed platform located approximately 30 nautical miles off the Brazoria County, Texas coast in approximately 115 feet of water.
SPOT is designed to load Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) at rates of approximately 85,000 barrels per hour, or up to approximately 2 million barrels per day. The SPOT design also meets or exceeds federal requirements and, unlike existing and other proposed offshore terminals, is designed with a vapor control system to minimize emissions. The long-term agreements with Chevron support Enterprise’s final investment decision. Construction of SPOT is subject to obtaining the required approvals and licenses from the federal Maritime Administration, which is currently reviewing the SPOT application.
“We are very pleased to announce these agreements with Chevron,” said A.J. “Jim” Teague, Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise’s general partner. “As a result, we are announcing our final investment decision for our offshore crude oil terminal, subject to government approvals.”
“The SPOT facility provides opportunity to significantly expand our export capacity and access multiple market centers as we increase our crude oil produced out of the Permian.” said George Wall, President of Chevron Supply and Trading, a division of CUSA.
With the flexibility to allocate loading across multiple export facilities, Enterprise will optimize its Houston Ship Channel facilities by creating additional capacity to load growing LPG, ethane and petrochemical export volumes. As domestic crude oil and NGL production continues to exceed U.S. demand and marine terminals approach full utilization, projects like SPOT and the expansion of Enterprise’s LPG, ethane and petrochemical capabilities will be essential to balancing the market and meeting global demand for U.S. production.
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. is one of the largest publicly traded partnerships and a leading North American provider of midstream energy services to producers and consumers of natural gas, NGLs, crude oil, refined products and petrochemicals. Our services include: natural gas gathering, treating, processing, transportation and storage; NGL transportation, fractionation, storage and import and export terminals; crude oil gathering, transportation, storage and terminals; petrochemical and refined products transportation, storage and terminals; and a marine transportation business that operates primarily on the United States inland and Intracoastal Waterway systems. The partnership’s assets currently include approximately 49,200 miles of pipelines; 260 million barrels of storage capacity for NGLs, crude oil, petrochemicals and refined products; and 14 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage capacity.
Source: Enterprise