A new dock and crude oil storage terminal built by Plains All American Pipeline LP received its first ship this week.
Eagle Ford Terminals Corpus Christi LLC, which is jointly owned by Plains and Enterprise Products Partners LP (NYSE: EPD), has been in the works since 2014. It includes four crude oil storage tanks that can store at least 1.2 million barrels and a dock big enough to accommodate a Suezmax, which can carry up to 1 million barrels. The project was built by Plains (NYSE: PAA). On Tuesday, the dock received its first vessel.
“The commissioning of our terminal in Corpus Christi is an important milestone for the Eagle Ford Terminals Corpus Christi joint venture that gives producers another option to move growing crude oil production from the Permian Basin and South Texas to markets where it can help to power progress, spark innovation and advance quality of life,” John Keffer, senior vice president of terminals at Plains All American, said in a statement.
A statement posted to the Port of Corpus Christi's website doesn't say what kind of vessel it was or where it was headed.
Three weeks ago, San Antonio-based NuStar Energy LP (NYSE: NS) made the first Corpus Christi export from a much-anticipated Plains pipeline delivering oil out of the Permian.
The Plains pipeline, along with another owned by local company EPIC Crude Holdings LP, is helping free up a bottleneck caused by growth in production in West Texas that began last year and was rising again this summer, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A third Permian pipeline owned by Phillips 66 is expected to be in service by the end of this year.
The Eagle Ford dock was previously the site of a commercial waste-management facility under the ownership of ASARCO LLC subsidiary Encycle. Due to environmental litigation, the companies entered bankruptcy in 2005 and ASARCO made any agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to put $10 million of a nearly $2 billion settlement toward cleaning up the Corpus Christi site.
In 2014, Eagle Ford Terminals bought the 72-acre site from Encycle and began removing what remained of the former waste-management facility, finishing cleanup on the site in 2016.
The new dock joins 29 others, including 13 public docks, at the Port of Corpus Christi capable of carrying oil and petrochemical products.