It seems that almost daily there is a report of another milestone in crude oil being lifted out of the US. Earlier this week it was announced a second VLCC, Nave Photon, had berthed and loaded a cargo of crude oil at LOOP.
In another milestone, today Buckeye Partners LP and Trafigura Trading LLC announced the first shipment of crude oil by a Suezmax tanker from the Buckeye Texas Hub terminal located along the ship channel in the port of Corpus Christi, Texas, US. Recently completed modifications allow the terminal to berth Suezmax-size tankers, enabling an incremental 1M barrels of crude oil to be exported each month from the terminal. The Suezmax tanker Astra, which finished loading at the terminal on 31 March, was chartered by Motiva Enterprises LLC, headquartered in Houston, Texas.
“Buckeye Texas Hub has become a premier location providing marine terminal services, allowing growing US energy exports access to global markets,” said Buckeye executive vice president and Global Marine Terminals president Khalid Muslih. “We are very excited to have reached this milestone and look forward to additional opportunities to partner with Trafigura to further expand the terminal’s capabilities and serve the region’s rapidly growing energy production.”
“North American supplies have launched the US onto the world stage as a new crude (oil) provider. Upgrading the terminal’s deepwater docks at Corpus Christi will help us to meet the growing demand for this product from European refineries, Far East refineries and petrochemical plants,” said Trafigura North America head of oil trading and director, Corey Prologo.
The terminal is operated and 80% owned by Buckeye and 20% owned by Trafigura, with Trafigura retaining exclusive throughput rights. It has approximately 7M barrels of storage capacity for liquid petroleum products, including a refrigerated and compressed LPG storage complex, pipeline connectivity for receiving crude oil and condensate production from the Permian and Eagle Ford shale plays, five vessel berths, including three deepwater berths and the capability to accommodate Suezmax-size tankers, and two 25,000 barrels per day condensate splitters. These capabilities allow Trafigura the maximum flexibility to market the full portfolio of crude and products to customers as near as the Caribbean and Latin America and as far afield as China.
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