It’s been two and a half years since Energy Transfer submitted its plan for the Blue Marlin Crude Export Project to the United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) and, like the large sea fish for which it is named of the proposed offshore terminal, the project has spent most of its time below the surface and out of sight. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progress on the regulatory and business fronts, and with US oil exports rising rapidly and a preference among many shippers for VLCCs that can be fully loaded without reverse lighting, the Blue Marlin he is alive and brave. , as we discuss in today’s RBN blog.
Crude oil exports have been a primary focus for RBN this spring as we prepare for our xPortCon-Oil 2023 conference on June 8 in Houston, more on that at the end of this blog, and two of the biggest questions there are (1) how much US production and exports will increase over the next few years and ( 2) how do we go about handling these higher volumes. RBN’s mid-term forecast sees US oil production rising by about 1.5 Mb/d over the next five years (from the current 12.3 Mb/d), with three-quarters of that incremental production from the Permian and most of the rest of the other shale plays that also produce light-sweet crude.
Since the ability of US refineries to economically process high-gravity, low-sulfur crude is virtually at capacity, it is likely that almost all of these incremental barrels will be destined for export terminals along the Gulf Coast. And, as we said a Calling the shotsit’s also a good bet that on their way to refineries overseas, as many of those barrels as physically possible will go to terminals like Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center (EIEC) and South Texas Gateway (STG), both in Ingleside, across Corpus Christi Bay, whose docks can receive and load VLCCs with minimal reverse lighting, the most cost-effective way to move massive volumes of oil to Europe and Asia.
